Flora Unveiled

The Two-Sex Model j 331

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Wherefore, if God clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast

into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you ...

When Grew referred to stamens specifically he used the term seminiform attires.

Seminiform attires were composed of two structures, the chives (a sixteenth- century term

meaning “threads”) and the semets (summits), equivalent to the anthers. Like sixteenth-

century botanists, Grew thought anthers resembled small grains of wheat, hence the term

“seminiform,” or seed- shaped. This in itself is suggestive, foreshadowing the discovery of the

role of stamens in seed formation.

Grew used the term florid attire when he could not find a typical seminiform attire (con-

sisting of stamens with conspicuous anthers) among the various “ornamental” structures

associated with a flower— as in the case of the disk flowers of chicory, marigold, and other

members of the Asteraceae or sunflower family. Because the five stamens of the disk flowers

are fused, forming a sheath surrounding the ovary and style, Grew was unable to discern the

individual anthers. Thus he mistakenly combined the style and stigma of disk flowers under

the rubric “florid attire.”

Already in 1671, however, Grew had begun to focus on the “seminiform attire,” which,

despite being dismissed by botanists as merely decorative, he now suspected played a more

important role than either the sepals or the petals:

The use of the Attire, how contemptibly soever we may look upon it, is certainly great.

And although for our own use we value the Leaves of the Flower, or the Foliation,

most; yet of all the three Parts, this in some respects is the choycest, as for whose sake

and service the other two are made.^20

Grew assumed that flowers were divinely created and that one of their functions was to

delight humans. But he doubted that this was their only function:

As for Ornament, and particularly in reference to the Semets, we may ask, If for that

merely these were meant, then why should they be so made as to break open, or to

contain anything within them? Since their Beauty would be as good if they were not

hollow; and is better before they crack and burst open, then afterwards.^21

Grew added the provision of “food for other animals” as another function of the attire,

for he had observed “a vast number of little Animals in the Attires of all Flowers,” a sign of

God’s love for even the smallest of his creatures:

Go from one Flower to another, great and small, you shall meet with none

untaken up with these Guests. ... We must not think that God Almighty hath

left any of the whole Family of his Creatures unprovided for; but as the Great

Master, some where or other carveth out to all; and that for a great number of

these little Folk, He hath stored up their Peculiar provisions in the Attires of

the Flowers; each Flower thus becoming their Lodging and their Dining- Room,

both in one.^22