2;o Examination of the Matured Framework [Book ii. 



The work of Treviranus 1 , to which the judges at Got- 

 tingen awarded the second place, is much less comprehensive 

 than those of his competitors ; the style is inferior to Link's, 

 and may even be called clumsy. But the much better figures 

 show at once that Treviranus was the more accurate observer, 

 and his work, in spite of the inferiority of its style, is of far 

 higher value on account of the attention paid in it to the 

 history of development ; Treviranus laid greater stress on this 

 method than either Link or Rudolphi, and it led him to form 

 views on some of the fundamental questions of phytotomy, 

 in which we see the germs of theories afterwards perfected 

 by von Mohl. His account of the formation of cell-tissue is 

 mainly that of Sprengel, and therefore an unfortunate one ; 

 but nevertheless his observations on the composition of wood 

 and the nature of vessels were as good and correct as could be 

 expected from the condition of the microscope at the time. 

 He made one discovery of considerable value, that of the 

 intercellular spaces in parenchyma, but he lessened its merit 

 by filling these passages with sap, and even describing its 

 movement. Woody fibres are due, he thinks, to strong 



1 Ludolf Christian Treviranus, born at Bremen in 1779, became Doctor of 

 Medicine of Jena in 1801, and practised at first in his native town, where he be- 

 came a teacher at the Lyceum in 1 807. In 1 8 1 2 he accepted the professorship 

 in Rostock vacated by Link, and was again his successor in Breslau. In 1 830 

 he exchanged posts with C. G. Nees von Esenbeck, who was a professor in 

 Bonn ; he died in that town in 1864. In the first part of his life he occu- 

 pied himself chiefly with vegetable anatomy and physiology, afterwards with 

 the determination and correction of species. His first works, which are 

 noticed in the text, and the treatises on sexuality and the embryology of the 

 Phanerogams, published between 1815 and 1828, are the most important in 

 a historical point of view. His ' Physiologie der Gevv'achse ' in two volumes 

 (1835-183S) is still of value for its accurate information on the literature 

 of the subject ; but it can scarcely be said to have contributed to the advance 

 of physiology, for its author adhered in it to the old views, and especially to 

 the notion of the vital force, at a time when new ideas were already asserting 

 themselves. The • Botanische Zeitung' for 1864, p. 176, contains a notice 

 of his life. 



