ON PLANTS. 99 



vital principle only, and their fruits and seeds were a residue 

 from the superfluous food of the plants. He held, it is true, 

 that the male and female principles or powers were blended 

 in some way in the plants, but he failed to discover the 

 sexual importance of the stamens and pistils. The import- 

 ance of these organs was not understood, in fact, until the 

 seventeenth century, when Camerarius concluded that, in 

 the vegetable kingdom, reproduction by means of seed is not 

 effected unless the anthers (apices) have duly prepared the 

 plant itself.* This conclusion was based on a number of 

 experiments, e.g., he observed that the castor-oil plant yielded 

 empty capsules and not perfect fruits if the male flowers were 

 removed before the anthers opened. Von Sachs says that all 

 historic records concur in proving that Camerarius was the 

 first who attempted to solve the question of sexuality in 

 plants by experiment.! ^ 



Aristotle refers to parasitical plants, and says that these 

 grow upon other plants, or may even be quite free, e.g., a 

 kind of Stonecrop (Epipetron) from Parnassus will grow for 

 a long time when merely hung over a peg. I When describing 

 the reproduction of bees, he says that some believed that 

 they did not reproduce sexually but obtained their young 

 from certain plants, e.g., some kind of honeysuckle or reed.§ 

 Again, he says that the Chloris, which was probably the 

 greenfinch, made its nest of a plant called Syitiphyton, which 

 it pulled up by the roots, and that its nest was lined with 

 grass, hair, and wool.|| 



In addition to those already mentioned, Aristotle also 

 mentions, mostly in passages relating to the food of various 

 animals, many other trees, shrubs, and herbs, some only of 

 which can be identified at all satisfactorily, e.g., species of 

 oak, elm, almond, myrtle, rose, mistletoe, vetch, thyme, and 

 various grasses. He mentions several plants from which, he 

 says, bees obtain wax, e.g., species of clover, lily, myrtle, and 

 broom, H and several which are usually planted near the 

 hives, e.g., species of wild pear, bean, lucerne, poppy, myrtle, 

 and almond.** 



The above represents most of the work of Aristotle on 

 plants, in so far as this has been preserved in his genuine 



* Dc Sexii Plantarum Epistola, Tubingen, 1694, p. 40. 

 f History of Botany from 1530 to 1860, Garnsey's translation, 

 Oxford, 1890, p. 385, J P. A. iv. c. 5, 681a. 



§ H. A. V. c. 18, s. 1. II Ibid. ix. c. 14, s. 2. 



II Ibid. ix. c. 27, s. 22. -* Ibid. ix. c. 27, s. 26. 



