Flora Unveiled

The Two-Sex Model j 333

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John Ray, gave Grew sole credit for the discovery in his Historia Plantarum (1686). The con-

versation between Grew and Sir Thomas undoubtedly took place, but it seems quite possible

that Grew himself instigated it in order to enlist an influential member of the Royal Society

as an ally should his sexual theory meet with any opposition from Malpighi loyalists.

In the event, Grew never actually contradicted Malpighi’s menstruation model of sta-

mens; rather, he built upon it. Echoing Malpighi, Grew stated that, initially, the “Attire”

served to remove impurities from the sap. He then proceeded to compare the Attire (along

with the “discharge” from the “womb”) to “menses”:

And First, it seems, That the Attire serves to discharge some redundant Part of the

Sap, as a Work preparatory to the Generation of the Seed. ...

Wherefore, as the Seed- Case is the Wo mb; so the Attire (which always stands upon

or round about it) and those Parts of the Sap hereinto discharged; are, as it were, the

Menses or Flowers, by which the Sap in the Wo mb, is duly qualified, for the approach-

ing Generation of the Seed.^28

Having fully endorsed Malpighi’s menstruation model of the flower, Grew next intro-

duced a startling innovation: the stamen began its life as the menses of the flower, but, after

maturing, it functioned as the male sexual organ by releasing pollen:

And as the young and early Attire before it opens, answers to the Menses in the Femal

[sic]: so it is probable, that afterward when it opens or cracks, it performs the office of

the Male.

In support of his theory, Grew cited the phallic appearance of seminiform Attires:

This is hinted from the Shape of the Parts. For in the Florid Attire, the Blade does not

unaptly resemble a small Penis, with the Sheath upon it, as its Praeputium. And in

the Seed- like Attire, the several Thecae [sacs; anthers] are like so many little Testicles.

Indeed, Grew’s interpretative drawings of “seed- like” (seminiform) attires do indeed have

a phallic appearance, although he had to greatly exaggerate the width of the filament rela-

tive to the anther to achieve the effect (Figure 12.3).

In the case of the “florid attire,” Grew regarded the sheath of fused stamens surround-

ing the central “blade” (his term for the style and stigma of disk flowers in members of the

sunflower family) as analogous to a “praeputium” (foreskin). However, he also observed that

the praeputium sometimes gave rise to “globulets” (pollen grains). This observation suggests

that Grew had some inkling that the “sheath” in chicory flowers was in fact functionally

related to the anthers (“thecae”) of the “seminiform attires.”

Completing the analogy of the attire to male genitals, Grew compared pollen grains to

“Vegetable Sperme”:

And the Globulets and other small Particles upon the Blade or Penis, and in the

Thecae, are as the Vegetable Sperme. Which, so soon as the Penis is exerted, or the

Testicles come to break, falls down upon the Seed- Case or Womb, and so Touches it

with a Prolific Virtue.