158 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



This is, of course, the single cotyledon, which is laid 

 open to show the radicle and plumule within ; the 

 knob is the organ for absorption of the endosperm. 

 Malpighi's figures are excellent, and together with the 

 figures of a germinating wheat-grain given in the De 

 Seminum Vegetatione, would furnish matter for a capital 

 exposition ; the descriptions however are less adequate ; 

 the two types are not closely compared, and the names 

 of the parts are not consistently employed. We find no 

 better account of the development of a monocotyledonous 

 plant until we come to Mirbel's memoirs of 1809.^ 



Tubercles on Leguminous roots. — Valerius Cordus 

 had already noted that small tubercles sometimes 

 appear on the roots of lupine ; Malpighi ^ figures them 

 in haricot and bean. The interpretation of these curious 

 and important structures belongs to recent plant- 

 physiology. 



Malpighi's figures and descriptions show that he had 

 studied objects so various and so little likely to catch 

 the eye of an ordinary observer as the scutellum of a 

 grass-seed, the replacement of the radicle of a grass by 

 lateral roots, the adhesion of earthy particles to root- 

 hairs, the poppy-fruit with its valves, the flower of an 

 orchis, the oblique fibres of a leguminous pod and the 

 spore-cases of a fern. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHICK 



The tracts on the development of the chick in the 

 egg ^ would thoroughly establish Malpighi's power as a 

 biological investigator, even if they had been his only 

 published researches. The subject was not quite a new 

 one ; Aristotle, Eustachio, Goiter, Fabricius of Aqua- 



^Ann. du Musium, Vol. XHI. = Anat. Plant. Pt. II, PI. II, IV. 



^ De Ovo Incubato, 1675 ; De Formatione Pulli in Ovo, 1673. 



