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.
Plate V
Plate from Anatomy of Vegetables Begun, 1672
Figs. 1-4, Bean Seed; 1, Bean opened out; 2, Same to shew 'seminal root'; 3, 'Lobe' cut across; 4, 'Plume' cut across. Fig. 5, Gourd and Lupine Seeds. Figs. 15, 16, 19, Anatomy of Burdock
The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun contains more that is of interest from a morphological than from a strictly anatomical standpoint, according to the modern sense of the terms. In botanical language, the meaning of the word anatomy has become restricted since Grew's time, until it is now often used to denote microscopic detail alone. Grew devotes a good deal of space to the study of seed structure, dealing chiefly with such features as can be observed with the naked eye ([Pl. 5]). He invented the term "radicle" for the embryonic root, and used the word "plume" for the organ which we now speak of in the diminutive as the plumule. The cotyledons he called "lobes," but he recognised that they might in some cases appear above ground and turn green, becoming in his terminology "dissimilar leaves." He took the Bean seed as his principal type, and described it with the lucid picturesqueness which is so characteristic of his writing. It is, he says[9], "cloathed with a double Vest or Coat: These Coats, while the Bean is yet green are separable and easily distinguished. When 'tis dry, they cleave so closely together, that the Eye, not before instructed, will judge them but one; the inner Coat likewise (which is of the most rare contexture) so far shrinking up, as to seem only the roughness of the outer, somewhat resembling Wafers under Maquaroons. At the thicker end of the Bean, in the outer Coat, a very small Foramen presents it self: ... That this Foramen is truly permeable even in old setting Beans, appears upon their being soak'd for some time in Water: For then taking them out, and crushing them a little, many small Bubbles will alternately rise and break upon it."... The Plume "is not, like the Radicle, an entire Body, but divided at its loose end into divers pieces, all very close set together, as Feathers in a Bunch; for which reason it may be called the Plume. They are so close, that only two or three of the outmost are at first seen: but upon a nice and curious separation of these, the more interiour still may be discovered.... In a French Bean the two outmost are very fair and elegant. In the great Garden-Bean, two extraordinary small Plumes, often, if not always, stand one on either side the great one now describ'd." These two "extraordinary small plumes" are, in other words, the structures which we should now describe as buds in the axils of the cotyledons. Grew also notices that two simplified leaves are borne next above the cotyledons, or, as he expresses it, the "Plume" is "cooped up betwixt a pair of Surfoyls."
Grew deals also with the vernation of leaves, and methods of bud protection. He shews that their position and folding gives "two general advantages to the Leaves, Elegance and Security, sc. in taking up, so far as their Forms will bear, the least room; and in being so conveniently couch'd, as to be capable of receiving protection from other parts, or of giving it to one another; as for instance, First, There is the Plain-Lap, where the Leaves are all laid somewhat convexly one over another, but not plaited; being to the length, breadth and number of Leaves most agreeable; as in the Buds of Pear-tree, Plum-tree, etc. But where the Leaves are not thick set, as to stand in the Plain-lap, there we have the Plicature; as in Rose-tree, Strawberry, Cinquefoyl, Burnet etc." Grew refers also to rolled vernation, distinguishing between the "Fore-Rowl" and the "Back-Rowl." He thus remarks on the hairy covering characteristic of young leaves:—"the Hairs being then in form of a Down, alwayes very thick set, thus give that protection to the Leaves, which their exceeding tenderness then requires; so that they seem to be vested with a Coat of Frieze, or to be kept warm like young and dainty Chickens, in Wooll."
In the year following the publication of The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun, Nehemiah Grew produced a second treatise, under the title, "An Idea of a Phytological History Propounded. Together with a Continuation of the Anatomy of Vegetables; Particularly prosecuted upon Roots. And an Account of the Vegetation of Roots Grounded chiefly thereupon." In the dedications of his books Grew often reveals much of his own personality, and of his attitude towards science, although such revelations are apt to be mingled with the curious "conceits," and extravagant flattery, characteristic of the time. For instance he dedicated this particular work to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society, and after addressing to them some apologetic remarks about his own performance, he takes heart of grace from the thought that "how unpromising soever the Stock may be, yet the Fruit cannot but be somewhat matured upon which You are pleas'd to shine." It shews how strong the influence of fashion can be, when we find such bombast coming from the pen of a man who, only a few lines earlier, has written, with the perfection of simplicity, "Withal, I looked upon Nature as a Treasure so infinitely full, that as all men together cannot exhaust it; so no man, but may find out somewhat therein, if he be resolved to try."