52 ORIGIN OF THE SEXUAL SYSTEM. 



inserted in the Philosophical Transactions*, concerning a remark- 

 able experiment made on the palm-tree. 



Professor Mylius's Letter to Doctor Watson, dated at Berli?i, 

 February 20, 1 750— 5 1 . 



" The sex of plants is very well confirmed, by an experiment 

 that has been made here on the palma major foliis JiabtUifqrm* 

 bus. There is a great tree of this kind in the garden of the 

 Royal Academy. It has flowered and bore fruit these thirty 

 years, but the fruit never ripened, and when planted, it did not 

 vegetate. The palm-tree, as you know, is a planta diaecia ; that 

 is, one of those in which the male and female parts of. generation 

 are upon different plants. We having therefore no male plants, 

 the flowers of our female were never impregnated with the farina 

 of the male. There is a male plant of this kind in a garden at 

 Leipsic, twenty German miles from Berlin. We procured from 

 thence, in April, 1749, a branch of male flowers, and suspend- 

 ed it over our female ones ; and our experiment succeeded so 

 well, that our palm-tree produced more than an hundred per- 

 fectly ripe fruit; from which we have already eleven young 

 palm-trees. This experiment was repeated last year, and our 

 palm-tree bore above two thousand ripe fruit. As I do not re- 

 member a like experiment, I thought it convenient to mention it 

 to you ; and, if you think proper, be pleased to communicate 

 it to the Royal Society." 

 • 



This letter, which was read to the Society the 2d of May, 

 1751, with some ingenious observations on the same subject, by 

 Br. Watson, F. R. S. to whom it was addressedf, has established 

 the fact, attested by the ancients, concerning the. palm-tree, 

 which some may, perhaps, have looked upon as fabulous ; and, 



* Vol. XLVII. Page 16q. 



f Printed also in the Philosophical Transactions with the letter. 



