Flora Unveiled

94 i Flora Unveiled

female (pistillate) flowers are spherical in shape, with three small green sepals fused to form
a cup- like structure containing three short, overlapping petals and three carpels with very
short styles and small stigmas (Figure 5.4, left). The pistillate flowers also contain six abor-
tive stamens. Note that visually and from an olfactory standpoint, the male flowers are
much more “flower- like” because of their showy, white, fragrant petals and multiple fila-
mentous stamens. In contrast, the female flowers, which are compact, greenish spheres with
no apparent visual attractants for pollinators, resemble immature fruits.

Evidence for Artificial Pollination in Mesopotamia

By the end of the third millennium bce, Mesopotamian city- states had made extensive con-
tact with the Semitic Amorites to the west, and, by the early second millennium, many rulers
of Mesopotamian city- states had Amorite names. One of these rulers of Amorite extrac-
tion was Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 bce. Under
Hammurabi, Babylon challenged and defeated many other city- states in Mesopotamia,
unifying a vast region stretching from Eridu and Ur in the south to Mari in the northwest.
Hence, historians use the term “Babylonia” instead of Sumer and Akkad beginning early in
the second millennium bce. In addition to his military and political victories, Hammurabi
is best known for the legal code that bears his name. That code even included laws governing
the artificial pollination of date palms.

(c)

Figure 5.3 Continued