392 i Flora Unveiled
thought proper to drop the sexual distinctions in the titles to the Classes and Orders.” So
far as the uses of floral structures were concerned, it was sufficient to state that “the produc-
tion of a perfect seed is the obvious use of the flower.”
Rather than use the terminology for floral structures established by Tournefort, Ray,
and Linnaeus, Withering reverted to those of Grew: empalement for the calyx, chives for
stamens, tips for anthers, pointals for pistils, summits for stigmas, and seed vessels for ova-
ries. It has been suggested that this was an effort to avoid sexual connotations,^33 but this
would not account for the use of empalement for calyx, a structure that has no sexual func-
tion. Perhaps Withering also believed that Anglicized terms would be more congenial to
an English audience than Latinate terms.^34 Despite Withering’s fastidious avoidance of any
mention of sexuality, his description of pollination was reasonably accurate as the process
was then understood:
The fine dust, or meal (farina) that is in the tips is thrown upon the summit of the
pointal: This summit is moist and the moisture acting upon the particles of dust occa-
sions them to explode and discharge a very subtle vapour. This vapour passing through
the minute tubes of the pointal arrives at the embryo seeds in the seed bud and fertil-
izes them. The seeds of many plants have been observed to become, to all appearance,
perfect without this communication; but these seeds are incapable of vegetation.Like Grew, Withering was a preformationist and an ovist. According to Withering, the
ovary contained an “embryo seed” prior to pollination, and pollen merely served to activate
the embryo by means of a “subtle vapour.” Ovism was, of course, more compatible with an
asexualist presentation than was spermism, which required the physical transfer of the germ
to the female.
By the end of the century, authors of botany books were still struggling with the dilemma
of how to present the Linnaean system to women. This was especially true of female authors,
even though they accepted the sexual theory itself. For example, in her book An Introduction
to Botany, in a Series of Familiar Letters (1796), Patricia Wakefield wrote:
Each anther is a kind of box, which opens when it is ripe, and throws out a yellow
dust that has a strong smell; this is termed pollen or farina, and is the substance of
which bees are supposed to make their wax. The progress of the seed to maturity
is deserving of the most curious attention. First the calyx opens, then the corolla
expands and discovers the stamens, which generally form a circle within the pet-
als, surrounding the pointal [pistil]. The pollen or dust, which bursts from the
anthers, is absorbed by the pointal, and passing through the style, reaches the
germ, and vivifies the seed, which without this process would be imperfect and
barren.Wakefield’s account of fertilization includes everything then known about pollination
except the word “sex.” She goes on to cite the experimental evidence in support of the
sexual theory while maintaining female modesty by steadfastly avoiding the “S” word.
Also absent from her account are any analogies, poetic or otherwise, between floral and
human sexual organs— a style of thinking and writing that, in any case, had been dropped
by this time.