Hayes and Garber - Cucurbit Breeding

4 BREEDING CROP PLANTS
"In the vegetable kingdom there is accomplished no reproduction
by seeds, that most perfect gift of nature, and the usual means of
perpetuating the species, unless the previously appearing apices of the
flower have already prepared the plant therefor. It appears reasonable
to attribute to these anthers a nobler name and the office of male sexual
organs."
Further Proof of Plant Sexuality. The work of Camerarius
was confirmed by several men. Thomas Fair child, in 1719,
produced a new variety of pinks by an artificial crossing of two
FIG. 2.- Male and female flowers of date palm about two times natural size.
(Photograph taken by Swingle in Sahara Desert, 1S99.)
varieties; and Bradley, two years earlier, found emasculated
tulips set no seed. Miller, 1731, noted insects pollinating emasculated
tulips after first visiting untreated tulip flowers. Governor
Logan of Pennsylvania, in 1739, experimented with maize
and observed that detasseled plants set no seed when isolated
from untreated plants. He also removed the silks and found
such treated plants were incapable of setting seed. Gleditsch