| Title: | Soul of plants |
| Original Title: | Ame des Plantes |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 1 (1751), p. 353 |
| Author: | Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville (biography) |
| Translator: | Ann-Marie Thornton [Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey] |
| Subject terms: |
Gardening
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Source: | Russell, Terence M. and Anne Marie Thornton. Gardens and landscapes in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert : the letterpress articles and selected engravings. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Used with permission. |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.741 |
| Citation (MLA): | Dezallier d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph. "Soul of plants." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Ann-Marie Thornton. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.741>. Trans. of "Ame des Plantes," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1. Paris, 1751. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Dezallier d'Argenville, Antoine-Joseph. "Soul of plants." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Ann-Marie Thornton. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.741 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Ame des Plantes," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1:353 (Paris, 1751). |
Soul of plants. Naturalists have seldom agreed in their attempts to locate the soul of a plant: some say that it resides in the plant or in the seed before it is sown, whereas others locate it in the fruit pip or stone.
La Quintinie believes it to reside in the tree centre, the seat of life, and in healthy roots worked on by warmth and the sap’s moisture. [1] Malpighi thinks that the main plant organs are the ligneous fibres, ducts, or cells of a tree stem. [2] Others say that the soul of a plant lies simply in the delicate particles of soil, which, when prompted by the sun’s warmth, pass through the plant pores, where they gather to form the substance which nourishes the plant. [3] See Ducts. [4]
Due to the renewed influence of Theophrastus, Pliny, and Columella, it is now thought that the soul of a plant resides in the pith which spreads into all of the branches and buds. [5] This pith, which is a type of soul situated in the centre of the tree stem and branches, is more noticeable in ligneous plants such as elders, figs, and vines, than in herbaceous plants, which are not however without it. See Ligneous, Herbaceous, etc.
The soul of a plant is regarded as purely vegetative, and, though Redi believes it to be sensory, this is generally admitted only for animals. [6] All three qualities of the soul, vegetative, sensory, and rational, are reserved for man, the most perfect being.
Notes
1. Jean-Baptiste La Quintinie (1626-88) studied the physiology of trees in Paris and conducted experiments in order to determine the working of the root, especially during transplantation (article ‘La Quintinie’, Kenneth Woodbridge, in Jellioce et al., 1991, p. 329). See also article ‘Jardin’.
2. The Italian biologist Marcello Malpighi (1628-94) published an Anatome Plantarum in two parts in 1675 and 1679; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995, vii.742-3.
3. On this erroneous account of plant nutrition, see above, n. 56. Water and dissolved mineral salts are absorbed from the soil by the roots and root hairs (Huxley et al., 1992, iii.607).
4. The ‘trachea’ or ‘duct’ was formerly defined as a vessel of the vascular tissue holding water, air, etc.; see article ‘Fistules’. ‘Tracheids’ and ‘vessel elements’ now refer to the two fundamental water-conducting cell types of the xylem (Huxley et al., 1992, iii.607-608).
5. Theophrastus ( c. 370- c. 287 BC ) composed Historia Plantarum in nine books, and De Causis Plantarum, in six books. Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia was a primary source for naturalists: there were seven editions, reprints, or translations of the work in the eighteenth century (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, p. 536; Grell, 1995).
6. Francesco Redi (1626-97), the Florentine naturalist.