OP THE ANCIENTS. 25 



isolated from the male, and that several females 

 may be seen bending towards the latter, with a 

 foliage of a softer character. The male tree on 

 the contrary, bristling with erect leaves, fecundates 

 the others, by its presence, by its exhalations, and 

 even by the dust it emits. And when it is cut 

 down, the females, reduced to a state of widow- 

 hood, become barren. So well, indeed, is this 

 sexual union recognised as taking place, that the 

 idea has arisen, of securing the act of impregnation 

 by man's agency, the blossoms from the male trees 

 being gathered for that purpose, and even some- 

 times nothing more being done, than to sprinkle 

 the dust taken from the same over the female 

 trees V 



1 This idea has been elegantly worked out by a Dutch poet of the 

 seventeenth century, Fontanus, in some lines which may perhaps have 

 suggested to Darwin his " Loves of the Plants :" 



" Brundusii latis longe viret aurea terris 



Arbor, Idumaeis usque petita locis 

 Altera Hydruntinis y in saltibus semula palmae 



Ilia virum referens, hssc muliebre decus. 

 Non uno crevere solo, distantibus agris 



Nulla loci facies nee social is amor 

 Permansit sine prole diu, sine fructibus arbor 



Utraque, frondosis et sine fruge comis 

 Ast postquam patulos fuderunt brachea ramos 



Cospere et coelo liberiore frui, 

 Frondosique apices se conspexere, virique 



Ilia sui vultas, conjugis ille suae 

 Haurire et blandum vinis sitientibus ignem 



Optatos foetus sponte tulere sua. 

 Ornarunt ramos gemmis, mirabile dictu ! 



Implevere suos melle liquente favos." 



j Now Otranto. 



