

Pistacia,* certainly as far as respects these trees, who always had the custom of suspending 

 the male flowers over the female in order to obtain fruit. 



Nor can it be denied that the most undent writers have expressly made mention of the Sexes 

 in Plants § But how little true knowledge they possessed upon this subject, and upon what 

 slender foundations it was built, appears from this, that they often mention males and females, as 

 separate in plants, where no such distinction existed.'}. 



Nay after the revival of letters, even in the last century, Botanists had so imbibed this 

 ancient error, that even eminent teachers of the art so badly discriminated the Sexes, that they 

 often called that a male which was the female plant,! which cannot better demonstrate their entire 

 unacquaintance with the subject. 



m , _ T ,„. r T n rnPHB*sTns o. 401, is thus mentioned by Pliny. " Syria Terebinthum 



* The Turpentine Tree, the Terebenthus Inpica of Iheophrastus, p. wi, ' '. 



^Z^t^'JtX~n!}"i^Si £ — -,** *.■*—*..«. .Wei,,.- u, u. -. 



book, the following passage : 



" Etiam Rhus Syriae mascula fert. sterili fzemina." ,_..., 



- AlTo in Syria I produced the Rhus, or Sumach, *.£. of £*££&* ^ tp^hf i^ sa^ in Agrigento osservai due 



ofThe Plsfachia, or Turpentine Tree, differing from each other, whieh the peasants distinguish by the ft* of male ^female. 



itt^7L"S5.^?W severa! large Pistachia .*** called in Sicilian, Scornabecco, and JJ-jJ-g; 

 These tree are of Linneus's Class Dhbcia, Order Pentanpria, and produce m«Ze and /e««/e Jfouer, upon different d.stmct plants. I he 

 Ster prove b^en and useless, unless rendered fruitful by the aspersion of ^farina from a male plant, and, therefore, the purposes o ^fe- 

 cundity cln only be answered by trees of different sexes being set near eacb other. In these gardens are many of the female kmd, and only 

 oneoTthTm" wh ch has smah, oblong, blunt leaves, of a dusky green, the flowers thick, and in bunches ; the /e m «/e b ossoms are more 

 scattered thfleav"^ arger, harder and rounder, and of a lighter colour. The male flowers first, and some gardeners pluck them when shut, 

 dry them and tewS sprinkle the dust over the female tree. But the method usually followed hi Sidy when the trees are far asunder 

 dry them and «««™ P b hes rf the mafe blossoms rea dy to blow ; these are stuck into a pot of moist 



ISIS f^5t^Se!«!i they are quite dry and empty; this operation is caUefl lYa***, and never fails to produce fruc- 



tification " Swinburne's Travels, Vol. iii. p. 386. 2d Ed. 8vo. I790. . 



AkhoughTmay seem to anticipate the train of reasoning of Linn*us, I cannot forbear relatmg here a story respectmg the Turpentine 

 Ttpp ^PT^TArHTA Tereb inthus) recorded by Duhamel. 



a^the garden of lf« De - Serre, in the Rue de St. Jaque at Paris, there grew .female turpentine tree, winch flowered every 

 year, but whkh furnished him no fruit capable of vegetation. This was a very sensible mortification to the owner, who bemg ignorant of the 

 doctrine of the sexes of plants, had laboured very hard to obtain an increase of that tree. 



"■Mess Duhame!. and Jussieu very properly took away all blame from the elements, and prom.sed him they would soon procure him 

 the plea^ur 'he dir e " They sent him I male turpentine tree, which was very much loaded with Blossoms It was according to their 

 direct'n planted near to the female turpentine tree. That year it produced a great quantity of fruit well conditioned, and such as, when 

 nlanted rose with facility. Being removed, his female turpentine tree became barren as before. 



Some gardeners in Sicily, according to Swinburne, have ingeniously contrived the art of budding the male tree upon the female, by 

 which means the two sexes are placed together upon the same tree. 



% The ancients certainly had no true knowledge of the Sexes of Plants, as at this day understood, as I have proved in the last note, 

 and elsewhere ; this indeed L™us, in the very next passage, seems to admit. Although these facts were thus daily obtruded on their 

 senses, inattentive to the structure of flowers, and ignorant of the offices of the several parts, they remained unacquainted with the true 

 operations of Nature in this phenomenon, though daily presented to their observation. 



f As the male Peony, male Cistus, male Fern, male Orchis, male Veronica, male Abrotanum, &c. 



t The Mercurialis Perennis, our common Dogs Mercury, is thus described by J. Bauhin. « Ex foliorum alis, famine quidem 

 lizul* recta: emicant, tenues, quas verticillatim sen in spica ambiunt flosculi glomerati muscosi, qui in quatuor fohola herb,da sese exphcantes, 

 cirros apiculorum luteolorum aut herbidorum ostentant, nulla succedento semine pereuntes. Mari autem ex eisdem ahs breves pedicuh on- 

 untur quorum singulis testiculata bursala, nonnihil compressa, hirsutaque insidet, gemina semina includens." Our countryman Kay 

 could'not let this pass unnoticed, who, in vol. i. lib. iv. chap. v. " De Mercurial!," remarks, « In hac description J. Bauhinus vulgarem 

 oninionem sequitur, Mercurialem sterilem pro fmmina, et fertilem pro mari accipiens: cum e contra rationi consonum s.t et al.arum rerum 

 naturalium analog, ut sterilis dicatur mas, fertilis famina. Fccmina enim est in omni genere qua; fetificat et fructum edit. ' In this 

 description John Bauh.ne follows the vulgar error, taking the barren Mercury for the female, and the fertile as the male : for it is contrary 

 to sound judgment, and the analogy of other productions in nature, to call that which is barren, the female ; and that which produces, the 

 male The female in all plants is that which swells, and produces seeds." Also in another chapter, when speaking of the Spinach, " vol. 1. 

 chap'iv De Spinachia," he corrects again the vulgar error of making "the spiked flowers into the female, and the sessile ones into the 

 male, also that the male and female plants were distinct species." His words are " Spinachia/<emm«, scu stenlis, perperam pro specie 

 diversa a Casp. Bauhino ponitur, cum ex eodem cum fertili semine proveniat." 



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