SEX 



SEX 



to a mufcle, now generally known by the name of the tri- 

 angularis fterni. 



SEXUAL System, in Botany, denotes that fyftem, 

 which is founded on a difcovery, that there is in vegetables, 

 as well as in aaimals, a diltinftion of the fexes ; or that plants 

 propagate themftlves by means of male and female organs, 

 either growing upon the fame tree, or upon different trees 

 of the fame fpecies. This fyllem is fuggelted and confirmed 

 by the analogy obfervable between the eggs of animals and 

 the feeds of plants, both ferving equally to the fame end ; 

 •viz. that of propagating a fimilar race ; and by the remarks 

 which have been made, that when the feed of the female plant 

 is not impregnated with the prolific powder of the male, it 

 bears no fruit ; infomuch that as often as the communication 

 between the fexual parts of plants has been intercepted, which 

 isthecaufe of their fecunclity,they have always proved barren. 

 The authors of this fyflem, after exaftly anatomizing all the 

 parts of the plant, allign to each a name, founded on its ufe 

 and analogy to the parts of an animal. Thus, as to the 

 male organs, the filaments are the fpermatic vefTels, the an- 

 therae the tefticles, and the duft of the antiierje correfpond 

 to the fperm and feminal animalcules ; and as to the female, 

 the ftigma is the external part of the female organ, which 

 receives the dufl ; the Ityle anfwers to the vagina ; the germ 

 to the ovary ; and the pericarpium, or fecundated ovary, 

 to the womb. See Vegbtatioji. 



The fexual fyilem was not wholly unknown to the an- 

 cients, though their knowledge of it was very imperfeft. 

 Accordingly we find in the account given by Herodotus 

 (lib. i.) of the country about Babylon, where palm-trees 

 abounded, that it was a cuftom with the natives, in their 

 culture of thefe plants, to affift the operations of nature, by 

 gathering the flowers of the male trees, and carrying them 

 to the female. By this means they fecured the ripening of 

 the fruit ; which might elfe, on account of unfavourable 

 feafons, or the want of a proper intermixture of the trees of 

 each fex, have been precarious, or at leaft not to have been 

 expefted in equal quantities. The ancients had alfo fimilar 

 notions concerning the fig. Theophraftus (Hid. Plant, 

 lib. iii. cap. 9.) obferves, that the charatteriitic and univerfal 

 difference among trees is that of their gender, whether male 

 or female. And Ariitotle (De Plantis, lib. i. cap. 2.) fays, 

 that we ought not to fancy, that the intermingling of fexes 

 in plants is the fame as among animals. However, there 

 feems to have been a difference of opinion among the an- 

 cients as to the manner m which plants fliould be allowed to 

 have a difference of fex. Some apprehended that the two 

 fexes exifted feparately ; and others thought that they were 

 united in the fame mdividual. Empedocles thought, that 

 plants were androgynous or hermaphroditical, or that they 

 were a compofition of both fexes. Ariitotle exprefles his 

 doubt upon this head. Empedocles (vide Arill. de Generat. 

 Anim. lib. i. c. 23.) called plants oviparous ; for the feed or 

 egg, according to his account, is the fruit of the generative 

 faculty, one part of which ferves to form the plant, and 

 the other to nourifh the germ and root ; and in animals of 

 different fexes, we fee that nature, when they would pro- 

 create, impels them to unite, and like plants to become one ; 

 that from this combination of two, there may fpring up 

 another animal. 



As to the manner in which fruits were impregnated, the 

 ancients were not ignorant that it was by means of the pro- 

 lific dull contained in the flower of the male ; and they re- 

 marked, that the fruits of trees never come to maturity till 

 they had been cherifhed with that duft:. Upon this fubjeft 

 Ariftotlefays (De Plant, lib. i. cap. 6.) that if one fliakes 

 the duft of a branch of the male palm-tree over the female, 



her fruits will quickly ripen ; and that when the wind flieda 

 this dufl of the male upon the female, her fruits ripen apace> 

 jufl as if a branch of the male had been fufpended over 

 her. And Theophrailus (Hilt. Plant, lib. ii. cap. 9.) ob- 

 ferves, that they bring the male to the female palm, in order 

 to make her produce fruit. The manner in which they pro. 

 ceed, fays he, is this : when the male is in flower, they 

 feleft a branch abounding with that downy dull which re- 

 fides in the flower, and fhake this over the fruit of the fe- 

 male. This operation prevents the fruit from becoming 

 abortive, and brings it foon to perfedl maturity. Phny alfo 

 informs us (Nat. Hilt. tom. i. lib. xiii. c. 7.) that naturalifls 

 admit the diflinftion of fex, not only in trees, but in herbs, 

 and in all plants. Yet this is no where more obfervable, 

 he adds, than in palms, the females of which never pro- 

 pagate, but when they are fecundated by the dull of the 

 male. He calls the female palms, deprived of male afTiflance, 

 barren widows. He compares the conjunftion of thefe 

 plants to that of animals ; and fays, that to generate fruit, 

 the female needs only the afperfion of the dull or down of 

 the flowers of the male. 



Zaluzianfki feems to have been the firll among the mo- 

 derns who clearly diftinguilhed from one another the male, 

 the female, and the hermaphroditical plants. About a 

 hundred years after him, fir Thomas Millington, and Dr. 

 Grew, communicated to the Royal Society their obferva- 

 tions on the impregnating duft of the ftamina. Grew's 

 Anatomy of Plants, publilhed in 1682. 



Camerarius, towards the end of the lafl century, obferved, 

 that upon plucking off the ftamina of fome male plants, 

 the buds that ought to have produced fruit came not to 

 maturity. Malpighi, Geoffroy, and Vaillant, have alfo 

 carefully confidered the fecundating duft ; the latter of whom 

 feems to have been the firlt eye-witnefs of this fecret of 

 nature, the admirable operation that paffes in the flowers of 

 plants, between the organs of different fexes. Many authors 

 afterwards applied thcmfelves to improve this fyltem ; the 

 principal of whom were Morland, Logan, Van Royen, 

 Bradley, Ludwig, Blair, Wolfiu;, &c. But Linnxus had 

 the honour of applying this fyftem to praftice, by reducing 

 all trees and plants to particular dalles, diftinguilhed by the 

 numberof their ftamina, or male organs. See Dutens' Inquiry 

 into the Origin of the Difcoveries attributed to the Muderni, 

 1769, chap. vii. Phil. Tranf. vol. xlvii. art. 25. 



The fexual hypothefis, on its firft appearance, was re- 

 ceived with all that caution which becomes an enlightened 

 age ; and nature was traced experimentally through all her 

 variations, before it was univerfally allented to. Tourne- 

 fort refufed to give it a place in his fyftem ; and Pontedera, 

 though he had carefully examined it, treated it as chimerical. 

 The learned Dr. Alfton, profellbr of botany in the univerfity 

 of Edinburgh, violently oppofed it ; but the proofs which 

 Linnxus has given amonglt the aphorifms of his " Fundamenta 

 Botanica," and farther illuftrated in his " Philofophia Bota- 

 nica," are fo clear, that the mind does not hefitate a moment in 

 pronouncing animal and vegetable conception to be the fame; 

 but with this difference, that in animals fruition is voluntary, 

 but in vegetables neceflary and mechanical. The impregna- 

 tion of the female palm by the farina of the male, related by 

 Mylius, in hit letter to Dr. Watfon (Phil. Tranf. vol. xlvii. 

 art. 25.) eftablifhes the fad attefted by the ancient* con- 

 cerning the palm-tree ; and as the fruftification in other 

 vegetables, though it may differ in particular circumftances, 

 has neverthelefs a general conformity to that of the palm-tree, 

 with refpeft to the parts fuppofed to be the organs of ge- 

 neration, which are difcoverable either on the fame or in a 

 feparate flower, we may, from this fingle experiment, deduce 



an 



