MALPIGHI 153 



The Stem of the Flowering-plant. 



The figures of the Anatome Plantarum show that 

 Malpighi had by his own labours attained to a fair 

 general notion of the herbaceous dicotyledonous stem, of 

 the woody dicotyledonous stem, and of the stem of maize. 

 Among other things they illustrate the scattered bundles 

 of monocotyledonous stems, the annual rings of dicotyle- 

 donous wood, the medullary rays, the rearrangement of 

 fibres at a node, dotted ducts (with a spiral fibre instead 

 of the characteristic marking), and wood-fibres. Cells, 

 which he calls utricles, sacculi and globules, were 

 familiar to him, both when filled with cell-sap and dry. 

 He knew also resin-passages and what he called 

 "lactiferous" vessels. He had compared transverse 

 sections of dicotyledonous branches in successive years.^ 

 Sap-wood, which he calls " alburnum," was in his day as 

 now rejected by carpenters, because it did not last.^ 

 He gives a recognisable figure of a tylosis in chestnut 

 wood,^ together with a fanciful explanation of its 

 function. The lenticels of a young branch are men- 

 tioned, though without explanation.* The pits of con- 

 iferous wood are described as swellings, and tolerably 

 figured ;^ the central opening is not shown. 



It is almost superfluous to say that there are many 

 mistakes, sometimes serious ones. The bast he supposed 

 to be a special tract of cortical fibres, adjacent to the 

 wood and gradually converted into wood, a view which 

 prevailed till the beginning of the nineteenth century. 

 The cambium he barely noticed, and did not recognise 

 it as a growing layer. His explanation of the course 

 of the sap is based on the direction of the bundles of 



1 PI. VIII. Figs. 32-6. » P. 20. • PI. IV, Fig. 23. 



4 Idea, p. 2. P. 10 ; PL VI, Fig. 2fi. 



