2^z Phytotomy founded [Book ii. 



preliminary communications, in which they gave a brief sum- 

 mary of the researches they had then made ; the fuller and 

 more complete treatises appeared afterwards ; the preliminary 

 communications formed the first part of the later works and to 

 some extent the introduction to them. Malpighi's longer 

 account was laid before the Society in 1674, while Grew pro- 

 duced a series of essays on different parts of vegetable anatomy 

 between 1672 and 1682 ; and these appeared together with his 

 first communication in a large folio volume under the title, 

 ' The anatomie of plantes,' in 1682. Thus Grew had opportunity 

 to use Malpighi's ideas in his later compositions ; he actually 

 did so, and the important point as regards the question of 

 priority is, that where he makes use of Malpighi he distinctly 

 quotes from him. No more is necessary to remove the serious 

 imputation which Schleiden has made against Grew in the 

 1 Grundziige' (1845), *• P- 2 °7- 



Whoever has not himself read the elaborate works of 

 Malpighi and Grew, but knows them only from the quotations 

 in later phytotomists, may easily imagine that these fathers of 

 phytotomy had found their way to a theory of the cell, such as 

 we now possess. But it is not so ; their works have very little 

 resemblance to modern descriptions of vegetable anatomy ; the 

 difference lies chiefly in this, that modern writers in their 

 accounts of the structure of plants start with the idea of the 

 cell, and afterwards treat of the connection of cells into masses 

 of tissue. The founders of phytotomy on the contrary, as 

 might naturally be expected, consider first and foremost the 

 coarser anatomical circumstances ; they describe the rind, 

 bast, wood, and pith chiefly of woody dicotyledons, and the 

 histological distinctions between root, stem, leaf, and fruit in 

 their broader relations, and examine the detail of the structure 

 of buds, flowers, fruits, and seeds for the most part only so far as 

 it can be seen with the naked eye. The more delicate struc- 

 tural conditions are afterwards discussed as a supplement to 

 this less minute anatomy and always in close connection with 



