Flora Unveiled

The Linnaean Era j 355

355 355

the tension or swelling of the male organs occurs so rapidly that the lips of the bud, giv-

ing way to such impetuous energy, open with astonishing speed. At that moment, these

excited organs, which seem to think only of satisfying their own violent desires, abruptly

discharge in all directions, creating a tornado of dust which expands, carrying fecundity

everywhere; and by a strange catastrophe they now find themselves so exhausted that at

the very moment of giving life they bring upon themselves a sudden death. ...

Nor does the scene end there. As soon as this sport has ended, the lips of the flower

approach each other with the same speed as they came apart, returning the bud to

its original shape. One would never suspect that the flower had suffered any violence

unless one had witnessed it, or unless one noticed the frail corpses of those valiant

champions, which remain for some time displayed on the tip, where, like so many

weathervanes, they serve as toys for the Zephyrs.

Such a consummation, of course, can only occur in hermaphroditic flowers. The mar-

riages of monoecious flowers, Vaillant notes, cannot be consummated before their buds

have opened because the two sexes reside on separate flowers. Perhaps because of their lack

of erotic potential, the flowers of monoecious and dioecious plants were treated rather cur-

sorily by Vaillant.

Vaillant’s obvious analogy of the stamen’s explosive release of pollen to a male orgasm

may seem like an outrageous, unscientific conceit, but it is only a logical extension of

Nehemiah Grew’s earlier portrayal of the stamen as a penis and his comparison of pollen to

sperm. Of course, Vaillant was also playing to his audience. One wonders whether the 200

or so male medical students somehow managed to maintain their decorum at this point or

whether they erupted in appreciative applause. Lest there be any doubt of the truth of his

description, Vaillant invited the members of the audience to witness the phenomenon for

themselves by venturing out to the Jardin du Roi early in the morning to observe the sting-

less nettle Parietaria (Lichwort), whose excitable stamens react explosively when touched:^13

All these mechanisms can be observed easily on the Parietaire, at the shepherd’s

hour,^14 that is to say the dawn, the time at which the different sexes of plants ordi-

narily engage in their frolic. And if the flowers are unwilling to perform while being

observed, one can force them to by gently prodding them with the tip of a needle; for

as long as the flower has reached, as we say, a competent age, it is sufficient to pull the

lips apart slightly, and the hampes or filaments of the stamen, initially bent or arched,

become upright in a violent effort, immediately enabling one to discover what hap-

pens in all its particulars in this type of amorous exercise.

Vaillant concedes that the stamens of hermaphroditic flowers move much more slowly

than this, and it is therefore more difficult to catch them in flagrante. But what they lack in

speed and force they more than make up for in stamina:

This precipitousness and vigor are a far cry from the behavior of the stamens of the

flowers that bear both sexes. The vast majority of these act almost imperceptibly, but

one has to assume that the slower they move, the longer the duration of their innocent

pleasures.