Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/398

378 (c. 15, 3) he says, that terebinths are some male and some female, and that the former are barren and are therefore called male. That Theophrastus in all these matters trusted to the relations of others is shown by a passage in the same book (c. 18, ), where he says, 'What men say, that the fruit of the female date-palm does not perfect itself unless the blossom of the male with its dust is shaken over it, is indeed wonderful, but resembles the caprification of the fig, and it might almost be concluded that the female plant is not by itself sufficient for the perfecting of the foetus; but this cannot be the case in one genus or two, but either in all or in many.' We observe the grand style in which the Greek philosopher dismisses this important question, and how far he is from condescending to make an observation for himself.

It appears that in Pliny's time the hypothesis of a sexual difference in plants had grown up and become confirmed in the minds if not of writers, yet of those who occupied them- selves with nature; Pliny in his 'Historia Mundi,' describing the relation between the male and female date-palm, calls the pollen-dust the material of fertilisation, and says that naturalists tell us that all trees and even herbs have the two sexes.

If this theme supplied little material for reflection to philosophers, it did not fail to excite the fancy of the poets. De Candolle cites the verses of Ovid and Claudian on the subject, and passing over the intervening centuries for a very sufficient reason notices the lively poetic description of two date-palms in Brindisi and Otranto by Jovianus Pontanus in 1505. But nothing was gained in this way for natural science.

Treviranus in his 'Physiologic der Gewachse 1 ' (1838), II. p. 371, has well described the state of knowledge on this subject