138 Transactions of the Society. 



" Marcellus Malpighi, professor at Bologna, gave a more accurate 

 account of the structure of plants [than Hooke]. He sent to the 

 Royal Society of London his great work ' Anatome Plantarum,' in 

 the year 1670, and which was published in two volumes, folio, at the 

 expense of the Society, in 1675. This work claims for him the title 

 of the creator of scientific botany. He is so accurate, and pursues 

 so correct a method, that it was a century before (i.e. in advance of) 

 the time at which he wrote it, and at the present day many so-called 

 botanists do not know so much of plants as Malpighi. He not only 

 observed the cellular structure of plants, but maintained that it was 

 composed of separate cells, which he called Utriculi. 



" Nehemiah Grew was Secretary to the Eoyal Society at the time 

 Malpighi's work was publishing. He published his ' Anatomy of 

 Plants' in 1682; is much indebted to Malpighi. He first took up 

 Die wrong view that the walls of the cells are composed of fibres ; 

 he also, by comparing the cells of plants to the froth of beer, would 

 appear to have thought that they were mere cavities in a homo- 

 geneous substance, a view which was afterwards supported by Wolff." 



The assertions of Schleiden are based upon dates, but they are 

 erroneous dates. Malpighi's preliminary discourse which occupies 

 the first fifteen pages of his ' Anatome,' has inscribed on the last 

 page, " Dabam Bononiae Calendis Novemb. 1671." It could not 

 have been sent to the Eoyal Society in 1670. The first part of his 

 'Anatome Plantarum' was sent by Malpighi in August 1674, but 

 did not reach the Secretary of the Koyal Society till the 28th January, 

 1675 ; it was published the same year in one volume. Grew was 

 elected Secretary in 1677, and had nothing to do with the publica- 

 tion of this earlier part of Malpighi's work. The second part of 

 the ' Anatome Plantarum ' (the second of Schleiden's two volumes) 

 reached the Society in 1679, and was published in the same year. 

 No doubt Grew, who was still Secretary, took care of it through the 

 press. But this part deals with the germination of seeds, galls, and 

 roots of plants. Grew has said nothing about galls. His completed 

 observations on germination were published in 1672, and on roots 

 in 1673. Grew could not have been indebted to Malpighi for any 

 help in these subjects. Schleiden makes his position apparently strong 

 by asserting that Grew's work was not published till 1682, and this he 

 does in face of the fact that the memoirs which occupy 140 pages out 

 -of 212 have on each title-page in bold letters " The Second Edition." 

 And still further Schleiden blunders. Grew had noticed the unrolling 

 of spiral vessels, and figures them in the leaves, and naturally, though 

 erroneously, interpreted this appearance as due to their being com- 

 posed of spiral fibres : but this is very different from the statement, 

 " that the walls of the cells were composed of fibres." And it is 

 difficult to understand the consistency of Schleiden when he proceeds 

 in the same sentence to say, " he also by comparing the cells of plants 

 to the froth of beer would appear to have thought that they were 



