456 HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



Plants, was ordered to be printed in 1670. It 

 contains plates representing extremely well the 

 process of germination in various seeds, and the 

 author's observations exhibit a very clear concep- 

 tion of the relation and analogies of different por- 

 tions of the seed. On the day on which the copy 

 of this work was laid before the Society, a com- 

 munication from Malpighi of Bologna, Anatomes 

 Plantarum Idea, stated his researches, and promised 

 figures which should illustrate them. Both authors 

 afterwards went on with a long train of valuable 

 observations which they published at various times, 

 and which contain much that has since become a 

 permanent portion of the science. 



Both Grew and Malpighi were, as we have re- 

 marked, led to apply to vegetable generation many 

 terms which imply an analogy with the generation 

 of animals. Thus, Grew terms the innermost coat 

 of the seed, the secundine ; speaks of the navel- 

 fibres, &c. Many more such terms have been added 

 by other writers. And, as has been observed by a 

 modern physiologist", the resemblance is striking. 

 Both in the vegetable seed and in the fertilized 

 animal egg, we have an embryo, chalazce, a pla- 

 centa, an umbilical cord, a cicatricula, an amtiios, 

 membranes, nourishing vessels. The cotyledons of 

 the seed are the equivalent of the vitellus of birds, 

 or of the umbilical vesicle of suckling-beasts : the 

 albumen or perisperm of the grain is analogous to 

 8 Bourdon, p. 384. 



