MALPIGHI 155 



up in the cortex and medullary rays. He does not 

 speak of a regular circulation of liquids, though this 

 has been attributed to him. The large vessels of the 

 wood, which he supposed to be all spiral, conduct 

 air; the laticiferous vessels are filled with elaborated 



Stomates 



Malpighi's Anatome Plantarum, Part I (1675) 

 contains the earliest account of stomates known to me.^ 

 Here we find figures of the sunk spaces in the oleander 

 leaf, each lodging several stomates, and also of the 

 stomates of poplar, chestnut, mulberry ; in the mulberry 

 they are shown attached to the leaf- veins like berries on 

 stalks. Citron, orange and lemon are said to possess 

 similar organs. Malpighi did not pursue his inquiries 

 so far as to discover that stomates are usual in leaves, 

 nor did he reveal their structure or their function. He 

 thought it enough to say that they opened to the air, 

 a,nd discharged either a vapour or a liquid ("inter 

 utriculos et fibrorum rete, in plerisque foliis peculiares 

 folliculi seu loculi disperguntur, qui patenti hiatu foras, 

 vel halitum, vel humorem fundunt "). Had he resolutely 

 attacked this last question, he would have found it 

 easily soluble ; nothing more was required than to tear 

 off a piece of the epidermis, moisten it with a drop of 

 water, and then examine it with a lens. The reproach 

 of having missed so great an opportunity does not rest 

 upon Malpighi alone; his facts, his engraved figures and 

 his question lay before the whole botanical world for 

 nearly two centuries without starting efiective experi- 

 mental investigations. 



1 Cf . Sachs, Hist, of Botany, pp. 468-00. 



»Anat. Plant, pp. 36-7, PI. XX-XXI, Figs. 106, 107, 109. 



