Grew was drawn to the study of plant structure at the age of twenty-three, and seven years later he produced his earliest work on the subject, _The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun_, which was published by the Royal Society in 1672. It will be remembered that the Royal Society was then quite in its youth, its first beginnings only dating back to about 1645[5]. By a curious coincidence,--recalling the classic case of Darwin and Wallace at the Linnean Society,--on the very day that Grew presented his treatise in print, the Secretary of the Royal Society received Marcello Malpighi's manuscript dealing with the same subject. Priority can however be fairly claimed for the Englishman, since he had submitted his treatise to the Society in manuscript earlier in the year. This question of priority, and also the question whether Grew was guilty of plagiarism from Malpighi's writings, has been much discussed at different times. Schleiden[6] in particular brought forward charges of the most serious nature against Nehemiah Grew's good faith. These accusations were, however, dealt with in detail in a pamphlet by Pollender[7] in 1868, and shown to be groundless,--Schleiden's information about the circumstances being wholly inaccurate. There is now practically no doubt that Grew was an independent worker, and was only definitely indebted to Malpighi, in so far as he himself acknowledges it. In the preface to the second treatise, for instance, he mentions the Italian botanist, and remarks in speaking of the "Air-vessels"--"the manner of their Spiral Conformation (not observable but by a Microscope) I first learned from Him, who hath given a very elegant Description of them." If Grew had been a wholesale plunderer from Malpighi's writings, he would scarcely have been likely to have acknowledged indebtedness on a special point. It must be confessed, however, that judging by present-day standards of scientific etiquette, Grew should have referred more fully to the works[8] of the Italian author, in his final book, _The Anatomy of Plants_. [Illustration: _Plate V_ Plate from _Anatomy of Vegetables Begun_, 1672]