In fact, the term ‘‘electricity’’ evolved from ‘‘electron,”’ 
the Greek name for amber. 
There was much speculation in the classical literature 
regarding the origin of amber. One of the first allusions 
to its botanical origin may be traced to the Greek myth 
in which amber was considered to be the coagulated tears 
of Phaethon’s sisters, who were turned to poplars while 
weeping about his death. Pliny, in his Historia Natu- 
ralis (77 A.D.), was of the opinion that ‘‘amber is pro- 
duced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to 
the pine genus, like a gum from the cherry, and the resin 
from an ordinary pine’’ (Bostock and Riley, 1857). The 
first author to deal in any satisfactory manner with bo- 
tanical origin, however, was Philip Hartman, who pub- 
lished ‘*Succini Prussici Historia Physica et Civilis’’ in 
1677. So great was interest in the botanical aspects of 
amber that the ideas in this treatise were presented before 
the Royal Society in 1697 by Robert Hooke. Hooke’s 
subsequent and more nearly complete discourses were 
published in 1705 (Williamson, 1932). 
The beautiful preservation of organisms or fragments 
of them (spiders, insects, small lizards, flowers, leaves, 
etc.) within a mass of resin has interested scientist and 
layman alike. The earliest work containing figures of 
plants in amber is Nathaniel Sendel’s ‘‘Historia Succin- 
orum Corpora Aliena....°’ (1742), which describes 
collections in the Dresden Museum. Although amber is 
a plant product, botanists have paid less attention to its 
study than have either entomologists or mineralogists. 
Insect inclusions often are more prominently abundant 
and more completely intact than plant remains. Certainly 
entomologists have pursued more diligently the taxono- 
mic description of insects, and their phylogenetic impli- 
cations, than have the botanists with regard to plant re- 
mains. Relatively entire flowers, fruits, and leaves do 
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