Alfred Barton Rendle

“ The system of Linnaeus was founded on characters derived from the stamens and pistils, the so-called sexual organs of the flower, and hence it is often called the sexual system. It is an artificial method, because it takes into account only a few marked characters in plants, and does not propose to unite them by natural affinities. It is an index to a department of the book of nature, and as such is useful to the student. ”

“ In 1694 R. J. Camerarius, professor of botany and medicine at Tübingen, published a letter on the sexes of plants, in which he refers to the stamens and pistils as the organs of reproduction, and states the difficulties he had encountered in determining the organs of Cryptogamic plants. In 1703 Samuel Morland, in a paper read before the Royal Society, stated that the farina (pollen) is a congeries of seminal plants, one of which must be conveyed into every ovum or seed before it can become prolific. ”

“ It does not of itself give the student a view of the true relations of plants, and by leading to the discovery of the name of a plant, it is only a stepping-stone to the natural system. Linnaeus himself claimed nothing higher for it. He says—“Methodi Naturalis fragmenta studiose inquirenda sunt. Primum et ultimum hoc in botanicis desideratum est. Natura non facit saltus. ”

“ This opened up a new field of research, and led the way in the study of Cryptogamic reproduction, which has since been much advanced by the labours of numerous botanical inquiries. The interesting observations of Morland, already quoted, seem to have been neglected, and no one attempted to follow in the path which he had pointed out. Botanists were for a long time content to know that the scattering of the pollen from the anther, and its application to the stigma, were necessary for the production of perfect seed, but the stages of the process of fertilization remained unexplored. ”

“ In arranging plants according to a natural method, we require to have a thorough knowledge of structural and morphological botany, and hence we find that the advances made in these departments have materially aided the efforts of systematic botanists. ”

“ The conclusion at which he arrives is that the pollen is not in all flowering plants necessary for impregnation, for fertile seeds can be produced without its influence. He supports parthenogenesis in some plants. Soon after the promulgation of Linnaeus’s method of classification, the attention of botanists was directed to the study of Cryptogamic plants, and the valuable work of Johann Hedwig (1730–1799) on the reproductive organs of mosses made its appearance in 1782. ”

“ Darwin’s experiments in reference to the movements of climbing and twining plants, and of leaves in insectivorous plants, have opened up a wide field of inquiry as to the relation between plants and the various external factors, which has attracted numerous workers. ”

“ The subject of fertilization was one which early excited attention. The idea of the existence of separate sexes in plants was entertained in early times, long before separate male and female organs had been demonstrated. ”

“ Female date-palms only were cultivated, and wild ones were brought from the desert in order to fertilize them. Herodotus informs us that the Babylonians knew of old that there were male and female date-trees, and that the female required the concurrence of the male to become fertile. ”

“ The Babylonians suspended male clusters from wild dates over the females; but they seem to have supposed that the fertility thus produced depended on the presence of small flies among the wild flowers, which, by entering the female flowers, caused them to set and ripen. ”