The Quandary Over Plant Sex j 99 9
Notes- Collectively, all the female reproductive units of a flower are referred to as the gynoecium
(based on the Greek terms for “woman” and “house”). The basic unit of the gynoecium is the
carpel (from the Greek word for “fruit”). Pistil (from the Latin word for pestle) is another term
for carpel, but there is a subtle difference: a pistil can refer either to an individual carpel (simple
pistil) or to multiple carpels that are united into a single structure (compound pistil). When
multiple individual carpels (simple pistils) are present, they are referred to collectively as the
gynoecium. In this book, we will use the terms “carpels” and “pistils” interchangeably when
referring generally to the female reproductive structures of flowers. - George, S. (2007), Botany, Sexuality and Women’s Writing. Manchester University
Press, p. 2. - In Genesis 30:2, when Rachel complains to her husband Jacob that he has not made her preg-
nant, he replies, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” - The survey ran from April 1995 to June 1996.
- To a certain extent, the allergy idea may have been suggested by the exhibit itself. We
noticed that the very first item that greeted our eyes upon entering the Pollinarium greenhouse
(besides the cloud of butterflies) was a blow- up of a photograph of a pollen grain in all its spiky
glory, along with a description of its role in causing hay fever. Perhaps the hay fever sign should
have been placed closer to the back door as an afterthought, where it belongs! TV commercials
have promoted the fear of pollen so effectively (some stations even present “pollen and mold
spore forecasts” as part of the weather report) that the average person today has been condi-
tioned to regard pollen as an agent of disease rather than one of the keys to human survival. - Most of us would agree that, at the macro level, external reality cannot be influenced by our
perceptions, hence the single arrow from “reality” to “perception.” At the nano level of quantum
mechanics, however, perception strongly influences external reality (the essence of Heisenberg’s
“Uncertainty Principle”) and we would have to insert a double arrow between “perception” and
“reality.” Fortunately, we are dealing with pollination biology, not quantum mechanics, so a
single arrow will suffice! - Salmans, Sandra, “When an it is labeled a he or a she,” New York Times, November 16,
1989, p. C1. - “Pink or blue?,” Infant’s Department ( June 1918):161, cited by Paoletti, 1997.
- “What color for your baby?,” Parents’ 14, no. 3 (March 1939): 98.
- Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, Book IV, 6. Trans. William Ogle.
- Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, 765b9– 16.
- Cadden, Joan (1995), Meanings of Sex Differences in the Middle Ages, Medicine, Science,
and Culture. Cambridge University Press. - Laqueur, T. (1990), Making Sex: Body and Gender From the Greeks to Freud. Harvard
University Press. - Cited by Laqueur, p. 26.
- Stolberg, Michael (2003), A woman to her bones: The anatomy of sexual difference in the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Isis 94:274– 299; Ian Maclean (1980), The Renaissance
Notion of Woman. Cambridge University Press, pp. 28– 46. - Laqueur, Thomas W. (2003), Sex in the flesh, Isis 94:300– 306; Londa Schiebinger (2003),
Skelettestreit, Isis 94:307– 313.