Lecture I 

 THE RISE OF MYCOTROPHIC STUDY 



The Beginning of Root Study:— After Herbalists had done 

 their work and, by means of wood-cut and description, had made 

 known the flora of Europe, inquiry began to be made into physiology 

 of plants. It is said that Major, in 1665, directed attention to 

 circulation of sap. Four years later, Ray proved ascent and descent 

 of sap and its lateral movement in certain plants. At the same time, 

 Woodward demonstrated by experiment that roots take in, not merely 

 water, but also materials dissolved in the water. Both Ray and 

 Woodward published their papers in the Philosophical Transactions 

 of the Royal Society. Beginning in this manner, with study of roots 

 in water culture, plant physiology was turned to root-hair study, 

 from which it has not seriously deviated to this day. 



Early Studies on Root Hairs: — Early observers were perhaps 

 influenced by knowledge of circulation of blood in animal bodies and 

 were doubtless expecting to find vessels in plants. When Malpighi 

 found root-hairs on elm, black poplar, and willow roots, he assumed 

 that these structures took up crude sap and passed it on to vessels. 

 Grew, publishing about the same time (1682) had decided that 

 spongy ends of roots served admirably for absorption of water and 

 food from the soil; and Hales in 1727 and de la Baisse in 1733 

 tried to show experimentally that the greater quantity of water 

 used by the plant was taken up through ends of the root-tips and 

 that root-hairs were only incidental phenomena. To these hypotheses 

 was added in 1768 that of S. Simon, who stated that roots, at least 

 the noduliferous, are merely excretionary organs which serve to 

 eliminate excess elaborated sap from the plant. In the earliest years 

 of the nineteenth century, Garradori showed that root-hairs are 

 wanting in water, from which fact he concluded that root hairs serve 

 for absorption of moisture from the air and not for absorption of 

 liquid water, which, he concluded, must be taken up by the spongy 

 ends of roots. But, according to Moldenhawer, root-hairs may be 

 compared to druse-hairs of leaves : they secrete a liquid which serves 



