Note 338 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
Even with those of plants in which the sexes are separate, the male flowers are generally mature before the female. Many hermaphrodite plants are, as first shewn by C. K. Sprengel, dichogamous; that is, their male and female organs are not ready at the same time, so that they cannot be self-fertilised. Now with such plants the pollen is generally mature in the same flower before the stigma, though there are some exceptional species in which the female organs are mature before the male.