The Quran

Preface

وَهُوَ الَّذي مَدَّ الأَرضَ وَجَعَلَ فيها رَواسِيَ وَأَنهارًا ۖ وَمِن كُلِّ الثَّمَراتِ جَعَلَ فيها زَوجَينِ اثنَينِ ۖ يُغشِي اللَّيلَ النَّهارَ ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآياتٍ لِقَومٍ يَتَفَكَّرونَ

Yusuf Ali

And it is He who spread out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm and (flowing) rivers: and fruit of every kind He made in pairs, two and two:¹ He draweth the night as a veil² o###?er the Day. Behold, verily in these things there are signs for those who consider!

I think that this refers to sex in plants, and I see M.P. has translated accordingly. Plants like animals have their reproductive apparatus?male stamens and female pistils. In most cases the same flower combines both stamens and pistils, but in some cases these organs are specialised in separate flowers, and in some cases, even in separate trees. The date palm of Arabia and the Papaya of India, are instances of fruit trees which are unisexual (Cf. 20:53 and 31:10).
Cf. 7:54 and n. 1032. The whole passage there may be compared with the whole passage here. Both their similarity and their variation show how closely reasoned each argument is, with expressions exactly appropriate to each occasion.