We give a simple and direct proof of the characterization of positivity preserving semi-flows for ordinary differential systems. The same method provides an abstract result on a class of evolution systems containing reaction-diffusion systems in a bounded domain of $ \mathbb{R}^n$ with either Neumann or Dirichlet homogeneous boundary conditions. The conditions are exactly the same with or without diffusion. A similar approach gives the optimal result for invariant rectangles in the case of Neumann conditions.