36 A History of Botany, 1860-1900 



at the outset as a histologist by his remarkable paper 

 on starch formation, which he published in 1880. Herein 

 he traced the formation of the highly organized starch grain 

 in all cases through the agency of plastids, and showed that 

 the action of the chloroplast is twofold, the original con- 

 struction of carbohydrate depending on the chlorophyll, 

 but the elaboration of the starch grain as such being inde- 

 pendent of the pigment. He pointed out the existence of 

 similar though colourless plastids in the non-illuminated 

 parts of plants, and showed that in certain cases they 

 develop pigment when exposed to light. 



In this work Schimper was compelled to oppose the 

 intussusception theory of the growth of organized structures 

 advanced more than twenty years before by Naegeli, which 

 is not in accordance with the action of the plastid in 

 secreting successively layer after layer of starch. Schimper's 

 work thus prepared the way for Strasburger's generaliza- 

 tion shortly to follow. 



Schimper's later work was to a large extent in the field 

 of oecology. He published memoirs on Epiphytes in 1884 

 and 1891, on the mechanism of transpiration in 1890, and 

 on the littoral vegetation of the Indo-Malayan region in 

 1891. During his later years he was engaged on his most 

 fascinating work, the great volume on Geographical Distri- 

 bution considered from a physiological standpoint, which 

 appeared in 1898. 



The death of Brongniart in 1876 robbed France of one 

 of her greatest botanists, one who may indeed be regarded 

 as the founder of the department of Palaeobotany, for he 

 certainly made possible the researches of the later time. 

 He devoted a long life in the main to investigations in this 

 field, commencing in his twenty-first year with a paper on 

 the classification and distribution of fossil plants. This paper 

 had of course to deal with but a small part of the material 

 now known, but it was memorable for its time, serving 



