Flora Unveiled

218 i Flora Unveiled

The female “semen,” which forms the embryo, corresponds to the menses. The male
semen, according to Aristotle, is composed of hot air and water; after transferring the
immaterial soul to the female it evaporates, leaving no material trace behind.
In a related passage, Aristotle states that, in animals, it is the male that provides the one
quality that differentiates animals from plants: sense- perception:

And yet the question may be raised why it is that, if indeed, the female possesses the

same soul and if it is the secretion of the female which is the material of the embryo,

she needs the male besides instead of generating entirely from herself. The reason is

that the animal differs from the plant by having sense- perception. If then, when the

sexes are separated, it is the male that has the power of making the sensitive soul, it is

impossible for the female to generate an animal from itself alone, for the process in

question was seen to involve the male quality.”^24

Although Aristotle stated that plants have a soul, it is a smaller and simpler vegetative
soul. Presumably this is the soul that the female aspect of the plant provides in full. The
sensitive soul, which the male provides in animals, is absent in plants. But if the sexes are
indeed “mingled” in plants, as Aristotle stated earlier, it would imply that plants have both
vegetative and sensitive souls. This would place plants on a par with animals on the Scala
Natura. To be consistent with their lowly station, plants must lack sensitive souls, which,
in animals at least, are derived from the male sex. That being the case, plants should have
no need for the male sexual contribution during reproduction as implied by Empedocles’s
metaphor, “tall trees lay olive eggs,” which clearly associates the tree with a female (egg-
laying) function. In this context, Aristotle seems to suggest that a plant is like a female who
is able to “generate entirely from herself ”— that is, parthenogenically. This is equivalent to a
“one- sex model” for plants in which plants are regarded as female.

Aristotle on Hybridization

The word “hybrid” is derived from the Latin word hybrida, meaning “the offspring of a
tame sow and a wild boar,” hence “mongrel” or “half- breed.” It is also presumed to be related
to the Greek word hubris, referring to a criminal action, often sexual, that shames the vic-
tim.^25 As we shall see in later chapters, the shameful aspect of plant hybridization persisted
until well into the eighteenth century.
Early Greek philosophers, despite their reservations about hybridization, were convinced
that it occurred frequently in nature. The most familiar example was the mule.
Classical writers described many other types of interspecies crosses— both real and imag-
inary. According to Aristotle, hybridization usually occurred in Africa near lakes:

It would appear that in [Libya] animals of diverse species meet, on account of the rain-

less climate, at the watering- places, and there pair together; and that such pairs will

often breed if they be nearly the same size and have periods of gestation of the same

length. For it is said that they are tamed down in their behavior towards each other by

the extremity of thirst.^26