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IAWA Bulletin N.S., Vol. 3 (1),1982 3 ANTONI V an LEEUWENHOEK

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IAWA Bulletin N.S., Vol. 3 (1),1982 3 ANTONI V an LEEUWENHOEK IAWA Bulletin n.s., Vol. 3 (1),1982 3 ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS OBSERVATION ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE WOODY CELL WALL by Pieter Baas Rijksherbarium, Leiden, The Netherlands Summary Following general remarks on the life of Van be traced back to negative but ill-informed Leeuwenhoek and his role in wood anatomy, judgements in some authoritative 19th and his account of the structure of a torn vessel 20th century publications (Baas, 1982a, b). wall of nutmeg rootwood is discussed in detail. Van Leeuwenhoek should be credited with The cross-wise orientation of minute 'vessels or many detailed and original wood and bark ana­ fibres' as observed and interpreted by Van tomical observations, but his work is not easily Leeuwenhoek can be considered to be the first accessible, being scattered in numerous letters, (unintentional) correct record of the fibrillar most of them also dealing with other microsco­ nature of the woody cell wall. pic subjects. Although most of these letters were published in various instalments and sev­ Introduction eral languages during Van Leeuwenhoek's life­ Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632, time, this presentation cannot compete with 350 years ago, in Delft (the Netherlands) as the the balanced treatises by Grew and Malpighi, son of a basket maker. Apprenticed to a cloth who each published books solely dealing with merchant, Van Leeuwenhoek's career started as plant structure and function. a shopkeeper. Later he would serve as usher to Interest in Van Leeuwenhoek's plant anato­ the aldermen, chief warden and wine-gauger of mical work has recently also been revived by the City of Delft, and surveyor to the Court of the rediscovery of some of his sections among Holland. Van Leeuwenhoek's scientific life his correspondence to the Royal Society (Ford, started late, at the age of 39 when he developed 1981a, b, c, and this issue). Van Leeuwenhoek's his first, simple microscopes. His microscopic free hand sections of cork and elder pith ap­ observations are recorded in an extensive corre­ peared to be of such excellent quality, that spondence with the Royal Society of London they still allow critical observation with the and with individual scientists, which Van Leeu­ modern scanning electron microscope, without wenhoek continued until his death at the age showing sectioning defects. of 90. His observations and interpretations This note only highlights one aspect of Van would rightfully earn him contemporary and Leeuwenhoek's immense work on the structure lasting fame as a pioneer in several biological and function of wood, viz., his admirable ob­ disciplines. Especially his discovery of micro­ servations on the structure of the woody cell organisms, his microscopic observations on wall. For further information the reader is re­ blood circulation, and of spermatozoa through­ ferred to the annotated edition (in English and out the animal kingdom stand out as land marks Dutch) of Van Leeuwenhoek's letters (1939- in the history of biology. Throughout his active present; still in progress) and Baas (198Ia). In­ scientific life, Van Leeuwenhoek also concern­ teresting data on Van Leeuwenhoek's micro­ ed himself with the anatomy and physiology of scopes can be found in Van Zuylen (1980). plants, but in these fields his achievements are General data on Van Leeuwenhoek and his usually considered to be far less important than, work are amply provided by Dobell (1932), and in fact inferior to those by Marcello Malpi­ Schierbeek (1950, 1951, 1959), and Heniger ghi and Nehemiah Grew, the Italian and En­ (1968). A portrait of Van Leeuwenhoek adorns glish 'joint fathers' of plant anatomy. the cover of this year's IAWA Bulletin volume. A comprehensive study of the scattered communications on wood structure and func­ Van Leeuwenhoek's observations on nutmeg tion by Van Leeuwenhoek, and a comparison rootwood with the major publications by Grew (1682) In his letter of I May 1695 (Vol. X of the and Malpighi (1686) has shown that this under­ Collected Letters edition) to the Royal Society, estimation of Van Leeuwenhoek's significance Van Leeuwenhoek writes at length on the nut­ for wood anatomy is fully unjustified, and can meg seed, embryo and rootwood. At this time Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:43:55PM via free access 4 IAWA Bulletin n.s., Vol. 3 (1),1982 that the transparent membrane which consti­ tuted the Wood tubule also seemed to be com­ posed of vessels, which also lay in the circum­ K. ference of the Wood tubules. In order to test this, I tore the said large Wood tubes in pieces lengthwise. And then perceived that they were M unusually crenate when torn, from which I firmly concluded that, however transparent those Wood tubules might appear to me, they were surely composed of a large number of ves­ sels running in circles. Fig. 12. IK. (reproduced here) denotes a very minute part of a torn-up and crenate large Wood tube, which Wood tube is very firmly joined to the adjacent small ves­ sel indicated by LM., from which I imagine the large Wood tube has derived its growth, the more so because one sees that, however trans­ parent the membrane of such a large Wood tube appears to be in many places, the large Wood tube is composed of vessels which seem to have their origin in the small vessel. Further I studied several of the aforesaid large Wood tubules as accurately as possible, and then I imagined I saw that the membrane of which the large Wood tube consisted was formed by small vessels or fibres extending crosswise through each other; and this part or membrane is denoted here by LNOI., the vessels or fibres extending therein through each other from I. to N. and from L. to 0., in order to impart some strength and rigidity to such a thin body through this structure; and who knows what different parts more such a Wood tube may contain.' Discussion Van Leeuwenhoek's figure 12 of his letter of In order to appreciate Van Leeuwenhoek's I May 1695 to the Royal Society of London text it must be realised that he made use of a (reproduced from Vol. X of 'The Collected terminology, based on the belief that virtually Letters'). all elongate microscopic structures observed in the plant body were vessels serving for the transport of (sometimes specific) saps. Thus in Van Leeuwenhoek was already an experienced the illustration reproduced here Van Leeuwen­ wood anatomist: in previous years he had de­ hoek interpreted the optical section of the lon­ scribed fairly accurately the stem anatomy of gitudinal wall LM as a vessel which supplied the some softwoods and several temperate and true vessel with substances necessary for its ini­ tropical hardwoods. One of his first remarks tial growth, and the fibrillar wall fragments is that it appears that the 'trunk of a Tree does seen in (oblique) surface view as minute vessels not have a different structure from the Root.' derived from LM. Here Van Leeuwenhoek's in­ Subsequently he gives a very detailed, well il­ terpretation (admittedly speculative as indica­ lustrated description of the anatomy of Myri­ ted by the words 'I imagined') becomes dualis­ stica rootwood based on transverse, tangential tic: the larger wall fragments between I and K and radial sections, which he concludes with are termed small vessels, but the criss-cross his almost 'ultrastructural' account of the ves­ structure in LNOI vessels or fibres, and for sel wall. The following citation is from the En­ these also a mechanical function is invoked. glish translation (p. 221 and 223) in the Col­ What did Van Leeuwenhoek really see? In the lected Letters: 'I also tried, if possible, to dis­ annotations of the Collected Letters, W. K. H. cover the structure of the large Wood tubes .. ,. Karstens stated that 'It is almost certain that L. during which examination it appeared to me here saw a system of cracks caused by shrink- Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 02:43:55PM via free access IAWA Bulletin n.s., Vol. 3 (I), 1982 5 ing (Fig. 12. LNOL). The cell wall, in particular solved at the light microscopic level. However, the secondary wall, is composed of thin con­ due to the fibrillar nature of the cell wall layers, centric layers and is well developed in cells splitting or tearing of woody cell walls follows with more or less thick walls, such as they also the direction of the fibrils of the individual occur in the wood. Each layer is composed of wall layers and produces a (macro)fibrillar pat­ cellulose fibrils arranged parallel to each other tern which can be seen at fairly low magnifica­ and extending at an oblique angle to the longi­ tions, both in the light microscope and in the tudinal axis of the element in question. In suc­ scanning electron microscope. Van Leeuwen­ cessive layers of the cell wall such highly hy­ hoek or his draughtsman must have idealised drated fibrils show differences in orientations. this observation considerably in the figure re­ Through desiccation the fibrils shrink so that produced here. Yet his drawing gives a model they grow thinner, and diverge from each other; for the woody cell wall (or cell wall pair) which thus, differences in their orientation become is fairly close to the truth, and can be consider­ visible in a system of cross-wise extending ed a forerunner of modern views on cell wall cracks.' . ultrastructure. Karstens put forward this interpretation be­ Van Leeuwenhoek's contemporary Nehemiah fore the days of extensive scanning electron mi­ Grew also indulged in speculations on cell wall croscopic research of the woody cell wall.
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