Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/244

 between the cellular and fibrous elements in the structure of plants. Two fundamental forms of tissue were assumed from the first, the succulent cellular tissue composed of chambers or tubes, and, in contrast to this, the elongated usually fibrous or tubular elementary organs, the distinction of which into open canals or vessels and fibres with closed ends continued to be doubtful. The characteristic feature of this period is, that the investigation of the more delicate structure is everywhere closely interwoven with reflections on the function of the elementary organs, and that thus anatomy and physiology support each other, but not without mutual injury through the imperfections of both. But the physiological interest far outweighed the anatomical with the first phytotomists, who used anatomical research for the purposes of physiology.

The imperfectness of the microscope during the whole of the eighteenth century produced a certain disinclination to anatomical studies, which were after all only regarded as auxiliary to physiology. The latter had made very important progress without the help of anatomy in the hands of Hales, and later on towards the end of the 18th century in those of Ingen-Houss and Senebier, and thus the interest in phytotomy was almost extinguished. Not only was very little addition made to the contributions of Malpighi and Grew during the 18th century, but they had to some extent ceased to be understood.

However towards the end of that time the microscope came again into fashion; in the compound form it had become somewhat more convenient and manageable; Hedwig showed how it revealed the organisation of the smallest plants, and especially of the Mosses, and he examined also the construction of cell-tissue and vascular bundles in the higher plants. But with the beginning of the present century the interest in phytotomy suddenly rose high again; Mirbel in France, Kurt Sprengel in Germany made the microscopic structure of plants once more the subject of serious