C 1 75 ] 
wherein the fex of plants does really confift, I muft 
beg^ leave to premife, that it is in the flowers 
of vegetables only, that the parts fubfervient to 
generation are produced. Simple flowers (I ufe 
this term in oppofltion to the compound flowers of 
the botanies) are either male female, or herma- 
phrodite. By male flowers, I would be underflood to 
mean thofe, which are poflefled only of thofe organs 
of gencraton, analogous to the male parts of animals ; 
and thefe are, what former botanifts have denomi- 
nated (lamina and apices , but are nam’d more properly 
by Linnaeus fince, filamentim and anthera. The fe- 
male flower is only endowed with parts like thofe, 
which perform the office of generation in females ; 
and thefe are the piji ilium and its appertenances, 
which by Linnaeus, with his accuftomed accuracy, 
are divided into three parts ; viz. the germen , ftylus, 
and ftigma. The hermaphrodite flower, which con- 
ffitutes the great bulk of the vegetable creation, is 
poflefled of all thefe parts in itfelf, and is itfelf thereby 
capable of propagating its fpecies without any fo- 
reign afliftance ; which, by many inconteftable ex- 
periments it has been found neither the male nor 
female flower Amply is able to do. 
Much the greater number of plants, as I have 
juft hinted, have hermaphrodite flowers ; but there 
are fome, which have both the male and female 
flowers growing from the fame root. Such are 
Mays or Indian corn, nettles, box, elm, birch, oak,, 
walnut, beech, hazel, hornbeam, the plane-tree, pine, 
fir, cyprefs, cedar, the larch-tree, melons, cucumers, 
gourds, and feveral others. In many of thefe, though 
the male and femaie flowers are at confiderable 
difiances,. 
3 
