theory, and even regarded him as its most eminent founder,
this arose partly from the fact that they were unable to
distinguish between his scholastic deductions and scientific
proof, and partly from that confusion of the idea of sexuality with a classification of plants founded on the sexual
organs, to which we have before called attention. Such a
confusion of ideas gave rise to the claims which Renzi asserted on behalf of Patrizi, but which Ernst Meyer, in
his 'Geschichte der Botanik,' iv. p. 420, has refuted on this
very ground. Even in our own century De Candolle has
been blamed by Johann Jacob Roemer for not giving Linnaeus the credit of being the actual founder of the sexual theory.
A few words in conclusion on those writers, who after Camerarius' investigations still denied sexuality in plants, because they knew nothing of what had been written on the subject or were incapable of appreciating scientific proof. Tournefort must first be mentioned on account of the great authority which he enjoyed with botanists during the first half of the 18th century. In his 'Institutiones rei herbariae' of the year 1700 (Book I. p. 69), with which we have already made acquaintance, he treats of the physiological significance of the parts of the flower, apparently in entire ignorance of Camerarius' researches, and at any rate with a leaning to Malpighi's views. He makes the petals take up nourishment from the flower-stalks, which they further digest and supply to the growing fruit, while the unappropriated parts of the sap pass through the filaments into the anthers and collect in the loculaments, to be afterwards discharged as excreta. Tournefort even doubted the necessity of the pollination of the female date-palm. The truth is that he was not well acquainted with the facts, and was led astray by his preconceptions. The same was the case with the Italian botanist Pontcdera; in his 'Anthologia' of 1720 he reproduces Malpighi's unlucky notion, and at the same time makes the ovary absorb the nectar for
