Rudolph Jakob Camerarius contributes particularly toward establishing sexuality in plants by identifying and defining the male and female reproductive parts of the plant and also by describing their function in fertilization

One of the first botanists to perform experiments in heredity, he shows that pollen is required for this process.

Professor of natural philosophy at the University of Tübingen, he describes his findings in the form of a letter to a colleague, De sexu plantarum (1694; “On the sex of plants”), and in Opuscula botanica (1697; “Botanical Works”).