EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 343 



botany at Cambridge, published in 1717 his New Im- 

 provements of Planting and Gardening, in which he 

 showed that tulips may be sterilised by complete 

 removal of the unripe anthers, hazels by removal of 

 the catkins. If however the female flowers of the hazel 

 are afterwards dusted with catkins from another tree, 

 their fertility may be restored. Bradley mentions 

 hybrids produced by the cross-fertilisation of Auriculas 

 and other flowers. 



Sebastien Vaillant put forth in 1718 a theory of the 

 flower,^ which is known to have produced an eflfect upon 

 the mind of Linnaeus some ten years later. ^ Vaillant 

 had been a pupil of Tournefort (who was now dead) and 

 a prot^g^ of Fagon, who is remembered not only as 

 chief physician to Louis XIV, but also as one of those 

 who laboured to turn the Jardin du Eoi into a well- 

 equipped botanic garden. Fagon had been professor of 

 botany and director of the Jardin ; when he retired 

 Vaillant took his place, which Tournefort had aspired 

 to. The king had been persuaded by Fagon to build 

 one hothouse in 1714 and another in 1717, the money 

 for the second being advanced by Fagon. In June 1717 

 there was a formal opening of the re-organised Jardin, 

 and on this occasion Vaillant delivered a discourse, 

 defending and expanding the doctrine of Grew. The 

 experiments of Camerarius are not mentioned, and 

 Vaillant adduces no experiments of his own. The 



* Discours sur la Structure des Fleurs. 4to. Leyden, 1718, in French and 

 Latin. An earlier edition (Paris, 1717) is mentioned by Fte in the Nouvelh 

 Biographie Vniveradle. 



^Dr. Daydon Jackson informs me that Linnseus' earliest utterance on the 

 sexuality of plants is his tract Prmludia eponaalia plantarum, written in 1729, 

 but first printed in 1908. At the time of writing Linnaeus had not seen 

 Vaillant's Discours, but only a review of it in the Leipsic Acta. He recog- 

 nised that the stamens and pistils were the essential parts of the flower, and 

 determined to found a new method upon them. 



