x i Acknowledgments
Métailié for stimulating discussions and for making available his unpublished manuscript
on ancient Chinese knowledge of sex in plants.
All of the preceding individuals deserve much of the credit for whatever we got right,
while the mistakes are purely our own.
We are also grateful to many others who offered encouragement at various times dur-
ing the long gestation period of the manuscript, among them Judith Aissen, Barry and
Emma Jean Bowman, Ben Leeds Carson, James Clifford, Jennifer Colby, Joanie DeNeffe,
David Federman, Shimon and Amira Gepstein, Jean Langenheim, Linda Locatelli, Kerrie
McCaffrey, Wendy Miller, Angus Murphy, Wendy Peer, Gary Silberstein, Bernardo Taiz,
Sherry Walker, Edmond and Beverly Weiss, and Joel and Nicole Yellin.
Finally, we thank Elizabeth Morales for her excellent illustrations in Chapters 17 and
18, and our editor Jeremy Lewis at Oxford University Press, whose faith in a book on sex in
plants has brought it to fruition.