Overview

The eighteenth century saw the development of a new approach to the study of plants: an experimental approach. Botanists were influenced by the great strides that had been made in physics as a result of Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) work on finding the basic principles underlying the complexities of motion, and they wished similarly to find unifying concepts governing the structure and activity of plants. One way to do this was to study plant physiology, that is, to devise experiments that would tease apart particular aspects of plant function. By the end of the century great progress had been made in determining how plants transport water, use sunlight to produce oxygen, and rely on insects and birds in pollination (the process by which pollen, containing the male sex cell, is transported from one plant to another of the same species).

Background

While at the...