218 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



Reverse Planting ^ 



Constantyn Huygens, father of the celebrated physicist 

 and mathematician, told Leeuwenhoek that the gardeners 

 of the Elector of Brandenburg were in the habit of plant- 

 ing trees upside down. Leeuwenhoek said that twenty 

 years earlier he had bent down a vine shoot and caused 

 it to enter the earth ; when it had rooted itself, the 

 connection with the parent plant was cut, and thus a 

 second vine was obtained ; he had treated branches of 

 gooseberries, currants and willows in the same way with 

 complete success, and experiments were now made on 

 lime-trees. The young tree was laid on the ground, the 

 roots at one end and the branches at the other being 

 sunk in the earth. In time the buried branches began 

 to send out roots. As soon as these were well estab- 

 lished, the roots were cut through, and the trunk raised 

 to a sloping position, the original lower end being now 

 uppermost, and the original upper end rooted in the 

 earth. Buds formed on what had been the roots, and 

 in the course of a little more than a year grew into 

 branches of good length. 



Eay and Willughby^ had made similar experiments. 

 Slips of willow were set in the ground with the growing 

 ends downwards ; briars which had taken root at the 

 small end were cut through ; all grew and flourished. 



Malpighi^ had observed that shoots of fig, prune and 

 bramble will grow if planted upside down, and yield 

 trees, though not full-sized ones. His conclusion is 

 given in these words, " unde alimenti via invertitur," 

 (the path of the nutritive sap is reversed).* 



lEpist. 64, Arc. Nat. (1688). Vol. II, pp. 141-6. 



2PM. Trans., No. 48 (1669). ^ Anatomes Plantarum Idea, p. 13 (1671). 

 * Theophrastus mentions the growing of pomegranates upside down {De 

 causis plantarum, Bk. II, eh. 9). 



