mere storing up, he ascribes the function of the leaves to the
parenchyma of fleshy fruits also and to the scales of bulbs; he
concludes from the exudations from stumps of trees and from
the cut surfaces of other parts of plants, that they are filled with
reserve-matter (asservato humore turgent).
Thus the essential points in Malpighi's theory of nutrition in the year 1671 were, that the vessels of the wood are primarily air-conducting organs, that the leaves elaborate the crude sap for purposes of growth, that the sap so elaborated is stored up in different parts of the plant, and that the fibrous elements of the wood convey upwards to the leaves the crude materials of nutrition which are absorbed by the roots. No mention is made of a circulation of juices, comparable to the circulation of the blood, though this idea was in later times often imputed to him; and we find by his later remarks, that while he was in no doubt as to the elementary organs which convey the ascending sap, he confined himself to conjecture with respect to the way by which the sap elaborated in the cell-tissue of the leaves, rind and parenchyma generally is carried on its further course. But he was in no doubt about the direction of that course ; he believed that this sap forces itself downwards through the stem into the roots, and upwards in the branches above the leaves and so into the fruit. Thus Malpighi had formed a more correct idea of the movement of assimilated matter than the majority of his successors who introduced the very unsuitable expression, 'descending sap.' He further thought it probable that the elaborated sap passes through the bast-bundles[1], but without a continuous flux and reflux (absque perenni et considerabili fluxu et refluxu) ; that it rests to some extent in the laticiferous vessels, but that it is also driven sometimes, when occasion requires, by transpiration and external causes into the higher
- ↑ He says, ' in mediis vasculis reticularibus,' which when taken in connection with his general histology, must be understood to mean the bast-bundles.
