Ancestry and Life narrative--his versatility--state of Botany--Grew and Malpighi--Grew's _bona fides_ vindicated--_The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun_--seed structure--his treatise on the Root--its dedication--_The Anatomy of Trunks_--_The Anatomy of Plants_--illustrations--Grew's conception of cells and tissues--the plant as a textile fabric--analogy with the animal body--medullary rays--secondary thickening--his understanding of external morphology--physiological notions--suggestions for experiments--importance of the habitat--the sexes of flowers--floral and seed structure--estimate of his contributions to Botany. Nehemiah Grew, who, with the Italian botanist Marcello Malpighi, may be considered as co-founder of the science of Plant Anatomy, lived in stirring and troubled times. His life[2] extended from 1641 to 1712; that is to say, he was born the year before King Charles I proclaimed war upon the parliamentary forces, and he lived through the Protectorate, the reigns of Charles II, James II, William and Mary, and the greater part of the reign of Queen Anne. He came of a stock remarkable for courage and independence of mind. His grandfather, Francis Grew, is described as having been a layman, originally of good estate, but "crush'd" by prosecutions for non-conformity in the High Commission Court and Star Chamber. Francis Grew had a son Obadiah, who was a student of Balliol, and entered the Church. When the Civil War broke out, he sided with the parliamentary party, but was by no means a blind adherent of Cromwell, with whom he is said to have pleaded earnestly for the life of King Charles I. In 1662 Obadiah Grew resigned his living, being unable to comply with the Act of Uniformity. Twenty years later, as a man of seventy-five, he was convicted of a breach of the Five Mile Act, and imprisoned for six months in Coventry Gaol. But though by this time his sight had failed, his spirit was indomitable. Whilst in prison, he dictated a sermon every week to an amanuensis, who read it to several shorthand writers, each of whom undertook a number of copies; it was then distributed to various secret religious meetings, at which it was read. Nehemiah Grew was Obadiah's only son, and it is a curious fact that the year 1682, which witnessed the father's imprisonment, was the year in which the son published his _magnum opus_, _The Anatomy of Plants_, prefaced by an Epistle Dedicatory to "His most sacred Majesty Charles II." So far as one can gather, Nehemiah Grew's career seems to have been singularly unaffected by the political crises that took place around him. The deliberate style of his writing certainly suggests a studious and unruffled life. He was an undergraduate at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and afterwards took his doctor's degree in medicine at Leyden, at the age of thirty. He seems to have been successful in his profession, and we learn from the sermon[3] preached at his funeral that he died