1849, finally settled the more important questions connected with the
sexual theory about the same time that Hofmeister established the
microscopic embryology of Phanerogams on a firm foundation.
Other parts also of vegetable physiology had been considerably advanced
before 1840; Theodore de Saussure observed in 1822 the production of
heat in flowers and its dependence on respiration; ten years later
Goeppert proved the rise of temperature in germinating and vegetating
organs. Dutrochet stimulated enquiry by his researches in various
branches of the science between 1820 and 1840; he was the first to
apply the phenomena of diosmosis to the explanation of the movement
of sap in plants with a lasting influence on the further progress of
physiology. Chemical investigations were less fruitful in results,
though they served to collect a considerable material of single facts,
which could afterwards be turned to theoretical account.
The close of this period, which began with unprofitable doubts, but
in which much was set in a train for further development after 1840,
is marked by the publication of some important compilations, in which
all that had as yet been done in vegetable physiology was presented in
a connected form. In addition to Dutrochet’s collected works (1837)
three comprehensive compendia of vegetable physiology made their
appearance, one by De Candolle, which was translated into German by
Roeper and published with many improvements and additions in 1833
and 1835; this was followed by a work on vegetable physiology by L.
C. Treviranus, 1835-1838, and lastly by Meyen’s ‘Neues System der
Pflanzenphysiologie,’ 1837-1839. These works exhibit the characteristic
features of the period chiefly in this, that physiology finds as yet
no strong support in phytotomy, while the old views of vital force are
brought face to face with more exact physico-chemical explanations of
processes of vegetation.
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