192 , R. J. Harvey Gibson. 
Still, even neglecting such, there is left over a large body of litera¬ 
ture that must be consulted by those who would essay serious 
research on the subject of the synthesis of organic compounds by 
green plants. It may be said, of course, that Sachs’s famous 
“ History of Botany ” is available to draw on as a foundation, but 
one’s faith in that much lauded work is far from being confirmed 
by a study of some of the original treatises on which Sachs bases 
his story of the development of Vegetable Physiology. 
According to Sachs, Malpighi and Hales were the first to 
establish the two cardinal points in the doctrine of the nutrition of 
plants, viz., that “the leaves are the organs which elaborate the 
food, and that a large part of the substance of the plant is derived 
from the atmosphere.” It is somewhat surprising that Sachs 
should give Malpighi so much credit, after having just said that “he 
was in doubt whether the air came from the earth through the roots 
or from the atmosphere through the leaves, for he had never 
succeeded in finding openings for the entrance of air in the roots 
or leaves, but he thought it more probable that the air is absorbed 
by the roots, because they were well supplied with tracheae and air 
has besides a tendency to ascend.” 
Malpighi’s book Anatomes plantarnm idea was, according to 
Sachs, “laid before the Royal Society, on December 7th, 1671, the 
same day on which Grew presented his treatise The Anatomy of 
plants begun.” This statement is entirely misleading, as the 
minutes of the Royal Society shew. Grew’s manuscript had been 
ordered for printing by the Council eight months previously, viz., 
on May 11th, 1671, and he presented the published work to the 
Society on December 7th, the date on which the manuscript 
abstract of the first part of Malpighi’s work was laid before it, 
which, together with the second part was not published until 
August 20th, 1674. So far as the anatomy of stems and roots is 
concerned, Grew undoubtedly has priority, but in the preface to 
the 1682 edition of his work, Grew states that his chapters on 
leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, comprising Book IV, “were 
presented to the said Society in the years 1676 and 1677.” Grew 
thus had access to Malpighi’s book of 1674 before he wrote his own 
chapters on leaves, although he makes no reference to Malpighi in 
them. 
Grew’s account of stomata is as follows :—“ But as the skins 
of animals, especially in some parts, are made with certain open 
pores or orifices, either for the reception, or the elimination of 
