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350
aristotle
In 350 BC aristotle preposes that plants need food just like animals do. -
Jan 1, 1450
nicholas of cursa
Nicholas of Cusa(1401-1464) proposes an experiment in which a plant is weighed and then planted in a container containing a weighed amount of soil. After a while, the final weights of plant and soil, as well as the total weight of water applied, are determined and compared to the initial values. -
nehemiah grew
on this date Nehemiah Grew was born, he would later go on to be the first person to observe chloroplasts in plant cells. -
Jan Baptiste van Helmont
Jean Baptiste van Helmont preformed the experiment proposed by Nicholas of Cusa almost 200 years earlier. He concludes that the entire mass of the plant came from water, but he ignores a slight decrease in the weight of the soil. -
Edme Mariotte
Edme Mariotte proposes that plants gain part of their nourishment from the atmosphere. -
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle published his “Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood” in which he said that the changing colour of blood during its passage through the blood vesels of the lung (from dark to light red) was because of a certain ingredient of air which was consumed by fire or breathing. -
Stephen Hales
Stephen Hales writes that plant leaves "very probably" take in nutrients from the air, and that light could also be involved. -
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley finds that air which has been made "noxious" by the burning of a candle can be restored by the presence of a green plant. He isolates the gas later identified as oxygen. -
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier investigates and later names oxygen. He recognizes that it is consumed in both animal breathing and flame. -
Jan Ingenhousz
Jan Ingenhousz findes out that only the green parts of plants release oxygen and that this occurs only when they are illuminated by sunlight. -
Julius Robert von Mayer
Julius Robert von Mayer proposes that the sun is the source of energy utilized by living organisms, and introduces the concept that plants get energy by converting light energy into chemical energy. -
J. V. Sachs
J. V. Sachs demonstrates light-dependent starch formation in chloroplasts. -
melven calven
melven calven was born on this date. He traced the paths that carbon-14 travels through a plant during photosynthesis, reailising that plants did not directly yurn sunlight into chemical energy, the chloroplasts stored it first.
