plant therefore reproduces itself and emits no fertilising material; and he adds, that in animals which do not move,
as those that have shells and those that live attached to some
other substance, male and female are not distinguished, for
their life resembles that of plants; at the same time they
are called male and female by resemblance and analogy, and
there is a certain slight distinction. In like manner some
trees produce fruits while others do not, though they aid
fruit-bearing trees in the production of fruit, as happens in the case of the fig-tree and the caprifig.
In comparison with these views of Aristotle those of his disciple Theophrastus[1] appear to some extent enlightened, and to rest on a wider experience, but even his observation supplies nothing of interest on the subject; for he says that some blossoms of the 'mali medicae' produce fruit, and that some do not, and that it should be observed whether the same thing occurs in other plants, which he might easily have done for himself in his own garden. He is more concerned with putting his knowledge into logical order, than with answering the question whether there is any sexual relation in plants. It is certain, he says, that among plants of the same species some produce flowers and some do not; male palms, for instance, bear flowers, the female only fruit[2]; and he concludes the sentence by the remark, that in this
lies the difference between these plants, and those which produce no fruit, and that it is obvious that there must be a great difference in the flowers. In his third book 'De Causis'
- ↑ The edition here used is that of Gottlob Schneider, 'Theophrasti Ercsii quec supersunt opera,' Leipzig, 1818. See in addition to the passages noticed in the text the 'De Causis,' 1. I. c. 13. 4, and 1. IV. c. 4, and the 'Historia Plantarum,' 1. II. c. 8.
- ↑ It should be understood that neither Theophrastus nor the botanists of the 16th and 17th centuries considered the rudiments of the fruit to be part of the flower; this, which was pointed out in the history of systematic botany, seems to have been overlooked by Meyer, 'Geschichte,' I. p. 164.
