OF NATURAL HISTORY. 24 t 



SECTION If. 



Of the Sexes of Plants. 



WH E N an hypolhefis, or theory, has obtained a general re- 

 ception among even the enlightened part of mankind, it is 

 extremely difficult to eradicate the prejudice, either by arguments 

 or by fads. There is not a notion more generally adopted, than 

 that vegetables have the diftindtion of fexe», and that the influence 

 of what is called the male is indifpenfibly neceflary to the fecunda- 

 tion of the female, or feed-bearing plant : A notion which I have 

 long confidered as a ftriking example of the danger of raihly yield- 

 ing affent to the alluring fedudions of analogical reafoning *. 



Every 



• The fubftance of the following fafts, and reafoning, was delivered, above twenty 

 years ago, in the Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, in prefence of the late worthy and 

 learned Dr Hope, and his ftudents. Dr Hope, in order to excite induftry and at- 

 tention in his pupils, appointed annually four of their number to give a ledlure, or 

 difcourfe, upon fome botanical fubjeft, which he prefcribed to them. To me the 

 Profeflbr afligned the Sexes of Plants, with the liberty of oppofing the doftrine of 

 Linnaeus, and his own. Being at that time a very young man, and a ftrift believer in 

 the fexual fyftem of plants, I willingly undertook the tafk, becaufe I thought I had 

 the chance of {howing fome little ingenuity in attempting to fhake a theory which I 

 tlien imagined to be eftablilhed upon the firmeft bafis of faft and experiment. But,. 



after 



