A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 28: Plant Growth Studies During the 1700s

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 52: Symbiosis Studies

“…Müller's book has a good historical introduction (1883:1–29, 1977), though he was unaware of Dobbs's 1750 article. It began therefore, with Christian K. Sprengel's Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen (1793), an encyclopedic survey (Egerton 2008:170–171). Sprengel (1750–1816) was rector of a Lutheran school and an amateur botanist (King 1975).…”

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 43: Plant Physiology, 1800s

“…We reach the 1800s, where we left off in Part 28 (Egerton 2008:169), with the Recherches chimiques sur la végétation 1804 by Genevan Nicolas‐Théodore de Saussure (1767–1845). He was indebted not just to Lavoisier and plant experimentalists of the 1700s, but also to his own father, Horace Bénédict de Saussure, a prominent geologist with serious interests in botany and meteorology (Carozzi 2005).…”

A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 30: Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology During the 1700s

“…He dismissed the ideas of spontaneous generation and embôtment within a host as absurd, and he therefore reluctantly concluded that eggs enter from outside the host (Farley 1972:105–106). As mentioned in Part 28 (Egerton 2008 b ), his eyesight gradually failed, and he switched for a while to botany, but as his sight further declined, he concentrated on theoretical and philosophical biology (Glass 1959:164–170, Gasking 1967:117–129, Bonnet 1971, Anderson 1982, Bowler 1989:60–63). He used his observations on parthenogenesis to support arguments for embôtment in Contemplation de la nature (1769, extract in English [Hall 1951:377–381]).…”

“…We met Johann Christian Fabricius (1745–1808) in Part 29 (Egerton 2008 b ), concerning his treatise on plant diseases (1774). He studied for two years under Linnaeus in Uppsala and considered those years formative of his outlook and understanding (Jespersen 1946:35).…”

“…Lepidopterists in England formed the world's first Society of Aurelians by 1740 (Allen 1978:14–15, Salmon 2000:30–35, 398). We saw in Part 28 (Egerton 2008 b :170) that insect pollination discoveries began in 1750, but aroused little interest among naturalists. Parasites did arouse interest.…”