Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . ,whose work did not appear until 1658. Leonardo points out that the part of a trees circumference whichfaces south shows more vigour and youth than the part which facesnorth. The rinos in a section through the trunk or branches showthe number of years they have existed, and the width of those ringscorresponds to the humidity or dryness of the various years. Theyshow, too, the orientation of the tree, for they are wider and thicker ^ Richter, vol. ii. p. 133.^ Richter, vol. ii. p. 270. ^ Conjectures à propos dun Buste en Marbre de Beatrix
Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science; . ,whose work did not appear until 1658. Leonardo points out that the part of a trees circumference whichfaces south shows more vigour and youth than the part which facesnorth. The rinos in a section through the trunk or branches showthe number of years they have existed, and the width of those ringscorresponds to the humidity or dryness of the various years. Theyshow, too, the orientation of the tree, for they are wider and thicker ^ Richter, vol. ii. p. 133.^ Richter, vol. ii. p. 270. ^ Conjectures à propos dun Buste en Marbre de Beatrix dEsté. {Gazette des BeauxArts, 1877, and Rkcrche, vol. ii. p. 1-25.) 88 LEONARDO DA VINCI on the north side than on the south, so that the core of the trunk isnearer to the bark on the south side than on the north.^ In another passage Leonardo explains the growth of bark asfollows : The increase in girth of jalants is caused by the sap whichdevelops in the month of April between the wood of the tree and .4, ANATOMICAL STUDIES. (Windsor Library.) me-. % its liber. The liber then changes into bark, and fresh fissures areformed in the bark, at the bottom of the fissures already existing. Among his other botanical researches we may refer to his studiesof the action of poison upon plants.^ He thus describes the nutrition of plants : The sun gives thespirit of life to plants, while the earth nourishes them with itsmoisture. With regard to this, I have already tried the experimentof leaving only a very small root to a pumpkin ; it brought to per- Montaigne found an artisan at Pisa (1580-81) who had noticed that the ringswere narrower on the nortli side of a tree than on the south. ( Voyage, Ancona edition,p. 484-485.) ^ Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathcmaliques, vol. lii. p. 225. STUDIES IN BOTANY 89 fcction all the fruil the plant could produce, which amounted tosixty pumpkins of the long kind. I patiently devoted my mind toconsider this result, and I saw that the moisture of the
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