The Rebirth of Naturalism j 299299 299
considered it a heavenly sign that malum, the Latin word for apple, was identical to malum,
the word for evil. This seems to have been one source of the sweet apple’s identification with
the forbidden fruit that led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from their earthly paradise.^26
It was further alleged that an apple cut in half lengthwise resembled female genitals— a
reminder of Eve’s complicity in the Fall.^27
Another hypothesis concerning the source of the apple’s ill repute is based on the apple
tree’s supposed preference for “adulterous” affairs.^28 The apple is difficult to grow from cut-
tings because of the large amount of root- inhibiting tannins that are released from the bark.
Because it is self- incompatible, it requires a genetically different apple variety as its pollen
source to set fruit, resulting in a heterozygous embryo. Consequently, it will not breed true
from seed. Medieval farmers knew nothing about the requirement for pollination for fruit
and seed production, but through grafting they were able to arrive at a practical solution to
the problem of propagating sweet apples. Grafting, however, was regarded by some medieval
authors as the plant equivalent of sexual intercourse.
As absurd as the idea of “apple adultery” may seem, it was within the moral framework
of scholastic discourse during the Middle Ages. For example, one of the questions Roger
Bacon put to his students at the University of Paris was whether the production of a mutant
sport or offshoot (monstrum) by a plant was the result of sin. This line of enquiry naturally
led to the question of whether or not plants were capable of sin (Bacon argued that they
were not).^29 Nevertheless, the fact that Bacon posed the question at all suggests that the
possibility of plant sin was taken seriously by thirteenth- century academics.Grafting as a Metaphor for Intercourse
The sexual symbolism of grafting had occurred to the early horticulturalists. Several pas-
sages in the Talmud compare marriage to grafting, and there were restrictions, according to
Jewish law, on the types of species that could be grafted together.^30 As noted in Chapter 5,
in the Jewish Mishna, the practice of artificially pollinating date palms by tying male flow-
ers to the female rachis was referred to as “grafting.” Likewise, the practice of grafting
trees was sometimes equated with sexual intercourse. The earliest written evidence for a
sexual interpretation of grafting can be found in the treatise Nabatean Agriculture by Ibn
Wahshiyya. Although Wahshiyya compiled the book in the tenth century, his sources are
thought to date to around 600 ad or earlier.^31 Wahshiyya relates that, to ensure a suc-
cessful graft union, the farmer must perform it ritualistically with the help of a “beautiful
servant girl”:[He] should take a beautiful (servant) girl ... who must be of outstanding beauty. He
takes her by the hand and lets her stand at the root of the tree where he wants to graft
the branch. Then he prepares the branch like people do when they want to graft it and
then he comes to the tree onto which he wants to graft it. The girl stands under the
tree. He cuts a hole in the tree for the branch and takes off the girl’s clothes and his
own clothes. Then he puts the branch in its place while having intercourse with the
girl, in a standing position. While having intercourse he grafts the branch to the tree,
trying to do it so that he ejaculates at the same time as he grafts the branch.^32