Nehemiah Grew

Nehemiah Grew was an English physician and botanist whose microscopic study helped establish plant anatomy as a systematic field. The Anatomy of Vegetables begun was published in London by Spencer Hickman in 1672 and presented to the Royal Society. Grew examined seeds, roots, trunks, and other plant structures, using careful observation to compare their internal organization. His work treated plants as complex living systems whose parts could be described and related, rather than as objects classified only by outward appearance. The Royal Society elected Grew as a fellow in 1671 and later appointed him to continue investigations into plant anatomy. The Anatomy of Vegetables begun marks an early stage of that sustained research program. Its historical spelling and lower-case final word belong to the seventeenth-century title rather than a modern descriptive phrase. The book’s combination of microscopy, comparative description, and institutional scientific exchange gives it an important place in the development of botanical study.