144 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK II. concerns this subject, together with what is added about spontaneous 

 productions of these despicable little animals, to which I refer the 

 curious. 



Trees, especially fruit-bearers, are infested with the measles, by 

 being burned and scorched with the sun in great droughts ; to this corn- 



latter female hermaphrodites. Here then we have an unexampled species of polygamy, 

 where those different flowers may impregnate each other, and one female joined with 

 barren males is impregnated by the males belonging to another female, which is itself 

 barren. Another thing which merits our observation in regard to time is, that when 

 the male and female flowers are in distinct cups on the same plant, or on different 

 plants of the same species, and where the male flowers are not erected perpendicularly 

 over the females, there it is necessary that the flowering be over before the leaves come 

 out, lest the fecundation should be hindered by the intervention of the leaves, e. fj;. in the 

 Mulberry, Mistletoe, Alder, Birch, Hornbeam, Beech, Oak, Hasel, Walnut, and also in 

 the Willow, Sea-buckthorn, Myrica or Dutch Myrtle, Poplar, Ash, and Dog's-Mercury. 

 5. Rains. — In almost all sorts of flowers we see how they expand or open by the heat of the 

 sun ; but in the evening, and in a moist state of the air, they close or contract their 

 flowers, lest the moisture getting to the dust of the antherse should coagulate the same, 

 and render it incapable of being blown on the stigmata ; but (which is indeed wonderful) 

 - when once the fecundation is over, the flowers neither contract in the evening, nor yet 

 against rain. Flowers with covered antherae never shut up in the night-time, e. g. those 

 of the Didynamia and Diadelphia classes. The antherse of the Rye hang out beyond the 

 flower, and if rain falls while it is in flower, the dust is clotted ; hence the husbandmen 

 do truly predict a bad crop of Rye ; for the grains are not so numerous, because many of 

 the florets prove abortive. But the antherse of the Barley lie so close within the husk, 

 that the rain cannot get in. If rain falls upon the bloom of the Apple, Pear, or Cherry, 

 the gardener immediately dreads the blossoms falling off, or proving abortive ; and 

 experience confirms the truth of this, for the powder of the antherae is spoiled ; yet this 

 accident oftener happens in the Cherry than the Apple or Pear ; for all the antherae of the 

 cherry flowers discharge their dust at once : but the case is not so in the others. Smoke 

 also is injurious, by drying up the moisture of the stigmata. 6. Culture of Palm-trees. — That 

 the cultivators of the common Palm-tree, or Date-tree, cut off the male spadixes, and 

 place them over the females, is recoi-ded by Theophrastus, Pliny, Prosper, Alpinus, 

 Toumefort, Ksempfer, and others; and if they neglect to do this, the dates are harsh, 

 bad-tasted, and many trees wholly destitute of fruit. Tlie Date-tree is every year thus 

 impregnated in Arabia, Persia, and Egypt, by the inhabitants. " The male spatlia; being 

 ripe (says Ksempfer) are taken from the top of the tree, the spadixes taken out, and 

 divided into lesser branches, that the rudiments of the fruit may be sprinkled with the 

 minute atoms of their dust ; a small branch of the male spadix is fixed into the middle of 

 the female spadix, and thus discharges its dust on the seed-buds. It is remarkable that 

 the spadixes dried, are still proper to impregnate the females, and may be kept a whole 



