8vo. [9], 26 pp., [2 index], Latin text, woodcut device on title, two large woodcut illustrations, ornamental initials, headpieces, modern vellum-backed marbled boards, new endpapers, from the Giancarlo Library of Scientific Books, Sub signum Leonis [heirs of C.T. Navó], Venice, 1591.

Synopsis

Reprint of a treatise on the qualities of the balsamum tree, first published in Venice in 1511. After qualifying as a doctor in 1578, Alpini settled and worked as a physician in Campo San Pietro, a small town in the Paduan region. But his tastes were botanical, and to extend his knowledge of exotic plants he travelled to Egypt in 1580 as physician to George Emo or Hemi, the Venetian Consul in Cairo. He spent three years in Egypt, and by observing the management of date palms there, he seems to have deduced the doctrine of the sexual difference of plants, which was adopted as the foundation of the Linnaean taxonomy system. He says that “the female date-trees or palms do not bear fruit unless the branches of the male and female plants are mixed together; or, as is generally done, unless the dust found in the male sheath or male flowers is sprinkled over the female flowers”.
Bibliographic references: Adams A-801; Wellcome I, 231.