Daily Yellowstone journal., 1888-08-07
FACTS o T
Something About the Discovery of SEX In
Plants and Its Importance.

Something About the Discovery of Seq In
Plants and Its Importance.
In its wild and native state the date
palm forms a tall and gracious tree of
stately aspect, inferior in beauty. it il
true, 10 the cocoanut, and still more 10
the mountain cabbage palm, but, with
the usual high and slender stem of all its
class, ~surmounted at the top by a tuft or
rosCtte Of Spreading fcathrry pinnate
leaves, deep green in hue, and from nine
20 twelve feet long in well grown
specimens. There are some very fine
ones, well known 10 most European tour
lists, in the gardens and courtyards Of
Algiers and Oran. In height they some
times reach as much as eighty feet near
running water; and as they live and bear
seed for 200 years, the follower of the
prophet who plants a date palm may in
deed be- regarded az laboring for posterity.
The trees begin b bear fruit at seven
years old, produce abundantly at twenty,
and 60 on supplying his children's chill
dren far on into a second century.
> The most Interesting item about the
date palm, however, is the fact that it
wa the first species in which the dis.
function Of sex in plants wa ever noticed.
As long ago as the days Of ~lIerodotus,
aud doubtless dozens of centuries earlier,
thc Egyptians and Babylonians knew
that the dates could only be fully set by
hanging the clusters Of male flowers
where their pollen could fall upon the
female blossoms and impregnate the
ovaries. As usual. this bit Of abstract
knowledge was earliest acquired whereit
brought itself 10 bear upon the universal
subject of human sympathy, the Ques-
iioa Of dinner. Your c~ounryman who
knows all other fungi merely in the
lump by tie common name Of toadstools
can discriminate as accurately as n
trained f~ungologist the edible mushroom
from all inferior species. Your cpicure
with the vagucs, views as to slugs and
snnils can smelly be trusted, not only TO
identify that familiar bivalve, Ostrca
odulis, but even b. distinguish between
such minor varieties ms the Portuguese
and the Whitstahle native, the Blue
Point and the genuine Saddle Rock.
And 20, too, the distinction Of male and
female in the date palm forced itself
violently upon the attention Of hungry
humanity nges before LinnRus had
demonstrated the functions Of pollen or
thr arrangements Of sexes in the rose
and tho buttercup.
Most plants, ms all the wo ID now
know. have the stamens, which produce
the pollen, and the pistil, which contains
the embryonic seeds, inclosed in one and
the same blossom; though even IN such
coaes provision is usually made for cross
fertilization Ivy tho agency Of insects,
either because the stamcns ind pistils do
not both mature simultaneously, or be-
cause tho pollen Is 80 arranged as never
10 fall naturally upont the sensitive stigma
III The unrpe capsule. But IN n few
plant -as. fgr example, IN the common
begonia aud IN box and I ~llitory-the
male and female flowers are quito dis
iinct, though both grow upon the same
stem; mud in yet othorl, like tho red
campiOn, tbehop, and tbe hautboy straw
beny. ono plant will produce nothing
but barren or stoincn bearing flowers,
rhilf1 nothy viii produce only fertile