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nice, a gentleman excellently well verfed in whatever 
relates to vegetation, has obferved, that a large len- 
tifcuSy or maftich-tree, near his garden, had for 
thirty years produced only male flowers, but that 
for three years paft it had produced plenty of fruit. 
The foundation of the difcovery of the real fex of 
pi ants, which is of no lefs importance in natural hiftory, 
than that of the circulation of the blood in the animal 
ceconomy, was laid by the members of this learned So- 
ciety ; although much of the honour due to them is at- 
tributed by foreigners to the late ingenious Monfleur 
Vaillant of Paris : and this may have arifen from our 
language not being generally understood upon the con- 
tinent. Sir Thomas Millington *, fometime Sedleian 
lecturer of natural philofophy at Oxford, as we fee by 
our worthy member Dr. Crew’s anatomy of plants §, 
feems firfl: to have afligned a more noble purpofe to 
the Jiamina and apices of flowers, than that which 
had been attributed thereto by preceding writers, 
and by Monfleur Tournefort afterwards ; viz. that 
of fecreting fome excrementitious juices, which were 
fuppofed hurtful to the embryo’s of the fruit. Sir 
Thomas conjectured, and rightly, “ that the Jiamina 
“ and apices ferved as the male for the generation 
e< of feed.” This hint, which was afterwards ad- 
opted by our learned brother Mr. Ray, in the preface 
to 
* Dr. Grew calls Sir Thomas Millington Savilian profeflor, 
which is a miftake. See Wood's Fajii . Oxon. vol. ii. col. 126. 
2d edit. 
§ Page 1 7 1. 
