CHAP, i.] by Malpighi and Grew. 239 



losis), which Malpighi figures Tab. vi, fig. 21, but the true nature 

 of which was not understood till 150 years later. Malpighi, 

 like succeeding phytotomists till as late as 1830, lays great stress 

 on the structure of the spiral vessels or tracheae, and mentions 

 particularly that they are surrounded by a sheath of woody 

 fibre ; but he did not fall into the strange notions which Grew 

 and other phytotomists entertained with regard to the nature 

 of these vessels. 



We may at present omit the numerous remarks on assimila- 

 tion and the movement of the sap ; the descriptions and 

 figures of the parts of buds and of the course of the bundles of 

 vessels in different parts of plants, and especially the analyses 

 of the flower and fruit and the examination of the seed and 

 embryo, conducted with a carefulness remarkable for that time, 

 deserve a fuller notice, but this would detain us too long from 

 our main subject. 



If Malpighi's work reads like a masterly sketch in which the 

 author is bent only on giving the outlines of the architecture 

 of plants, the much more comprehensive work of NEHEMIAH 

 GREW 1 , 'The anatomy of plantes' (1682), has the appearance 

 of a text-book of the subject thoroughly worked out in all its 

 details ; the tasteful elegance of Malpighi is here replaced by 

 a copiousness of minute detail that is often too diffuse ; while 

 in Malpighi we only occasionally encounter the philosophical 

 prejudices of his time, which usually lead him into mistakes, 

 Grew's treatise is everywhere interwoven with the philosophical 

 and theological notions of the England of that day ; but we 

 are compensated for this by the more systematic way in which 

 he pursues the train of thought, and especially by the constant 



1 Nehemiah Grew, the son of a clergyman in Coventry, appears to have 

 been born in 1628. Having taken a Doctor's degree in a foreign University, 

 he practised as a physician in his native town, and pursued at the same 

 time his phytotomical researches. He became Secretary to the Royal Society 

 in 1677, and published his ' Cosmographia Sacra' in 1701. He died in 

 1711. See the ' Biographic Universelle.' 



