In Book 1 of On the Generation of Animals, Aristotle gives his view of plant generation.
In Book 1.1, Aristotle writes:
But all those creatures which do not move, as the testacea and animals that live by clinging to something else, inasmuch as their nature resembles that of plants, have no sex any more than plants have, but as applied to them the word is only used in virtue of a similarity and analogy. For there is a slight distinction of this sort, since even in plants we find in the same kind some trees which bear fruit and others which, while bearing none themselves, yet contribute to the ripening of the fruits of those which do, as in the case of the fig-tree and caprifig. […] Plants, however, must be investigated separately.
At the end of Book 1, part 23:
In all animals which can move about, the sexes are separated, one individual being male and one female, though both are the same in species, as with man and horse. But in plants these powers are mingled, female not being separated from male. Wherefore they generate out of themselves, and do not emit semen but produce an embryo, what is called the seed. […] As plants they have no sexes
What is Aristotle saying about Plant generation?
In the last line of Book 1.1, Aristotle says Testacea and animals like it do not have sex, but he calls them male and female by similarity and analogy. Does Aristotle apply the same analogy and similarity to all plants?
