Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/419

] dissertation, 'Sponsalia Plantarum,' in the first volume of the 'Amoenitates Academicae' (1749). He first gives the views of Millington, Grew, Camerarius and others; then on p. 63 he accepts the statement of Gustav Wahlboom, that he, Linnaeus, had devoted infinite labour to this question in 1735 in the 'Fundamenta Botanica,' and had there (132-150) proved the sexes of plants with so great certainty that no one would hesitate to found on it a detailed classification of plants. Here then we have once more the construction of Linnaeus' so-called sexual system introduced into the question of sexuality, as if it had anything whatever to do with the establishing the existence of sexes in plants, and as to the infinite labour (infinito labore) which Linnaeus is supposed to have given to the question, the paragraphs cited from the 'Fundamenta' contain the scholastic subtleties quoted in Book I. chap. 2, but not one single really new proof. The arguments in the dissertation we are considering are of exactly the same kind, and it is itself only a lengthy paraphrase of Linnaeus' propositions in the 'Fundamenta Botanica,' illustrated by experiments made by others, and with the addition of a few unimportant observations, some of which are misinterpreted. We read, for instance, p. 101, 'Nectar is found in almost all flowers, and Pontedera thinks that it is absorbed by the seeds that they may be the longer preserved; it might seem that bees must be hurtful to flowers, since they carry away the nectar and the pollen;' but Linnaeus, differing from Pontedera, remarks that ' bees do more good than harm, because they scatter the pollen on the pistil, though it is not yet ascertained what is the importance of the nectar in the physiology of the flower.' This fact of the assistance rendered by insects, which was soon afterwards better described by Miller, is not further examined in this place, for Linnaeus goes on to speak of gourds, that they do not perfect their fruit under glass, because the wind is prevented from effecting the pollination.