Prospero AlpiniBorn 23 Nov 1553; died 23 Nov 1616 at age 63.Italian botanist and physician who is credited with the introduction to Europe of coffee and bananas. He made an extensive study of Egyptian and Mediterranean flora. He spent three years in Egypt, and from a practice in the management of date-trees, which he observed in that country, he seems to have deduced the doctrine of the sexual difference of plants, which was adopted as the foundation of the Linnaean 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." He is reputed to have been the first to fertilize date palms. He died on his birthday. |
