26 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



This is the only passage, so far as I am aware, 

 in which Pliny adduces any facts in favour of the 

 existence of sexes in plants, and they are taken 

 exclusively from the case of dicecous ones. 



As to the well-known lines of Claudian, so often 

 quoted in support of the idea that the ancients 

 possessed a knowledge of the modern system of the 

 sexuality of plants, where the poet says, 



" Vivuut in venerem frondes, omnisque vicissiin 

 Felix arbor amat, nutaut in niutua Palmse 

 Foedera, populeo suspirat Populus acta 

 Et PJatuni Platauis, Aluoque adsibilat Alnus,"- 



all we can say is, that they are a poetical ampli- 

 fication only of the idea thrown out by the prose 

 writers alluded to, and afford no additional evidence 

 in favour of its truth. 



In coming to the conclusion, therefore, that all 

 plants are similarly circumstanced, Pliny seems to 

 be guided by analogy merely, nor is there reason 

 to infer that he possessed any knowledge of the dis- 

 tinct function performed in the case of flowering 

 plants in general by the stamens and pistils where 

 the two are conjoined. 



At any rate, the trees to which the ancients ap- 

 plied the terms male and female are not such as 

 shew this distinction of sexes on separate indi- 

 viduals. Thus no plant to which the term eXarrj, 

 or Abies, can by possibility be applied, possesses 

 male flowers on one, and female ones on another 

 separate and distinct individual. Accordingly, we 



