MARIOTTE, Edmé. Premier essay de la végétation des plantes. 1679.
MARIOTTE, Edmé.
Premier essay de la végétation des plantes.
Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1679.
12mo (154x88 mm), (4)-179-(1) pages. binding : Contemporary full calf, spine gilt in six compartments. A fresh copy, but binding with some lack of leather.
First edition of the first of the four Essays de Physique of Mariotte (ca. 1620-1684), published between 1679 and 1681.
This first essay, "On Plant Vegetation" is a pioneering work in the history of plant physiology
Mariotte is interested in the circulation of the sap. His observations are very accurate for the time. He asserts that it is particles present in the air that cause the appearance of vegetation on dry ponds. He also shows that if a plant is toxic, it's not because it grows on a different soil from that of a non-toxic plant, but because it uses the materials in a different way.
Sachs in it's History of Botany almost 10 pages (pp. 476-483) to this essay : "It is highly instructive to gather from his letter the ideas of one of the most famous ablest of the natural philosophers of that day on chemical processes and conditions in the nutrition of plants".