Abstract
Brown continued to work on his taxonomic studies (which helped influence the growth of the natural system of classification in England). He picked up the threads of research that he had begun earlier, studying the minute structure of the vegetative and reproductive organs of plants. It was while he conducted this work that he made an important discovery concerning the behavior or action of minute particles. This was the discovery of the phenomenon of “Brownian motion,” an achievement that epitomized his journey from a descriptive naturalist to an investigative scientist. Brown studied the pollen grains of the flowering plant, Clarkia pulchella (commonly called elkhorns or ragged robin, pink fairy, clarkia or deerhorn)—in fluids such as water. He demonstrated that any kind of matter, whether organic or inorganic and reduced to smaller particles, would exhibit random movement when suspended in a medium like water. Brown did not understand the actual cause of the random motion of the particles but his observation proved to be relevant to biologists and physical scientists as well. Brown accomplished further breakthroughs during this period (from the late 1820s to the 1850s). His recognition of the “naked” (uncovered) condition of the ovules in the cycads and conifers eventually led to the taxonomic division of seed plants into two distinct groups, the gymnosperms, conifers and cycads, and flowering plants, the angiosperms. He also conducted significant work in cytology, develo** a deeper understanding of the composition of the cell. He identified the phenomenon of protoplasmic streaming. Perhaps most important was Brown’s observation of the nucleus in certain plant cells, an observation made by several other pioneers in cytology although Brown did not grasp the full significance of his discovery at the time. Brown deserves credit for ascertaining that matter, inorganic or organic, when broken down into finer particles but still visible microscopically, would exhibit discernible random motion when suspended in water or other fluids. When young Charles Darwin went to Brown to be tutored in microscopy, Brown showed him the protoplasmic streaming he had observed in plant cells. On November 1, 1831, he presented “The discovery of the nucleus of the vegetable cell” before the Linnean Society, reporting his important microscopic observations. Brown’s focus during the last few decades of his life was in paleobotany, earlier marked by a fossil-hunting trip he took to the Burgundy region of France in 1836. Brown continued to publish work describing in minute detail the fine structure of plant fossils, illustrated by his 1847 paper on the strobilus of the cone of an extinct fossil plant, a treelike organism related to the Lycopsids or club mosses belonging to the genus Lepidodendron.
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Notes
- 1.
See Stephen G. Brush, “A History of Random Process, I. Brownian Movement from Brown to Perrin,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 5 (1968): 1–36, pages 1 to 5 are relevant to this discussion. Brush’s account is from a different perspective, a historical examination by a physicist and historian of the physical sciences.
- 2.
William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the United States found this plant in the Bitterroot Mountains in Idaho, and he turned over his botanical specimens to the German-American botanist, Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774–1820), who gave the plant its scientific name, Clarkia pulchella, in honor of the explorer Clark; the species name pulchella meant beautiful.
- 3.
Among the journals where it appeared were Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1828) 5: 358–371 and Annales des Sciences Naturelle (Paris) (1828) 14: 341–362.
- 4.
A Brief Account of Microscopical Observations Made in the Months of June, July and August, 1827, on the Particles Contained in the Pollen of Plants; and on the General Existence of Active Molecules in Organic and Inorganic Bodies. Copy is in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Gardens.
- 5.
In 1905, Albert Einstein suggested that Brownian motion was the result of the particles colliding with (water) molecules. Brown’s discovery provided the first evidence suggesting the existence of atoms.
- 6.
Charles Darwin: His Life told in an autobiographical Chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters, edited by his son, Francis Darwin (London: John Murray, 1892), p. 46.
- 7.
George Eliot, Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908), p. 251.
- 8.
Robert Brown, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 16 (1833): 685–745.
- 9.
Read before the Linnean Society on November 1 and 15, 1831.
- 10.
Brown, “Observations on the Organs and Mode of Fecundation in Orchideae and Asclepiadaceae,” Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 16 (1833): 685–745, 707. See Vasco Ronchi’s “Amici, Giovanni Battista,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), pp. 135–137, and M.J.S. Rudwick’s “Brongniart, Adolphe Théodore,” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 4 (2008).
- 11.
“Observations of the Organs and Mode of Fecundation in Orchideae and Asclepiadaceae,” Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 16 (1833): 685–745, 710–712; also in the privately printed manuscript, “Observations” (1831), 19–21.
- 12.
Letter from Raffles to Banks, August 14, 1818, D.T.C. 20: 105–107. Also in The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Banks, vol. 8. The letter was written shortly after Joseph Arnold’s discovery of Rafflesia arnoldii and Arnold’s death.
- 13.
See Robert McCracken Peck’s note, “Discovered in Philadelphia: a third set of Thomas Horsfield’s nature prints of plants from Java,” in Archives of Natural History (2014), 44(1): 168–170.
- 14.
Botanist and historian, William T. Stearn criticized Brown’s lack of interest in tackling Horsfield’s collection, indicating that while “Horsfield … hoped for a complete enumeration of his material classified and named by Brown,” it was delayed by “Brown’s other activities and his eleven-week holidays.” This may be an unduly harsh criticism because Plantae rariores Javanicae, when it was published, represented a considerable contribution, although Stearn commented that it consisted of “only” 258 pages and 50 plates, and Brown contributed written commentary on 30 of Horsfield’s 2196 species. “Robert Brown,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biographies, volume 2, pages 516–522 (1970), pp. 520–521. However, Stearn was effusive in his praise of Brown’s skills in his introduction to a modern edition of Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. He wrote: “The magnitude of Robert Brown’s contribution of the Australian flora as collector and investigator becomes evident when set against what was known about Australian plants to the end of 1805, the year of his return to England from Australia,” Stearn, “An Introduction to Robert Brown’s Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae,” Weinheim: Engelmann, 1960.
- 15.
Gardener’s Chronicle, 1852 (26 June): 406–407.
- 16.
See Plantae rariores Javanicae, Thomas Horsfield, M.D., Robert Brown and John J. Bennett ed. The Miscellaneous Botanical Works of Robert Brown, pp. 560–561.
- 17.
See The Miscellaneous Botanical Works of Robert Brown, J. J. Bennett, ed., 2 vols. (London, 1866–1867).
- 18.
Charles James Fox Bunbury, The Life of Sir Charles J.F. Bunbury, bart, with an introductory note by Sir Joseph Hooker. ed. by his sister-in-law Mrs. Henry Lyell (London: J. Murray, 1906), p. 199. This volume contains a similar note Bunbury made later in the year when he met Charles Darwin, and reported that Darwin told him that he was “to some extent a believer in the transmutation of species, though not … exactly to the doctrine either of Lamarck or of the Vestiges,” p. 213. Also see Memorials of Sir C.J.F. Bunbury, bart. Naturalist, 1809–1886, Volume 2, Middle Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Bunbury was married to Charles Lyell’s sister-in-law.
- 19.
Letter of January 16, 1840, to Alexander Macleay, written from his residence, 17 Dean Street, Soho. There are several of the letters from Brown relating to his distant cousins, one of whom, John Lyall, wished to travel to Australia and Brown wrote on his behalf to ask Macleay’s help and advice. The letters are preserved in the Linnean Society Archives and were transcribed by John Sellick, a fellow of the Linnean Society in 2009.
- 20.
William Stearn faults Brown’s administration of his duties at the British Museum in the latter part of his life. He cites the deterioration at the British Museum and was more supportive of William Hooker’s aggressive efforts after Brown’s death. Stearn, “Robert Brown,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biographies, volume 2, pages 516–522, (1970), and The Natural History of South Kensington: A History of the Museum, 1753–1980 (London: The Natural History Museum, 1998). A sample of letters preserved in the Linnean Society Archives, to William Macleay, were written on January 20, 1840, where he indicates that he is as “desirous as ever of adding to my New Holland Collection,” runs counter to this claim. Another is a letter to Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward (1791–1868), an English physician who was an amateur botanist, and supported efforts to transport collections of plants to museums and herbaria. Brown wrote to Ward on September 6, 1841, in connection with “Price’s collection from Swan River” [Australia] indicating that after examining the collection he found “very few novelties” so he was “not inclined to be the purchaser on my own account.” But he instructed Bennett “to take charge of it at the Museum & look it over carefully so as to judge of its extent state & the expediency of recommending it to be purchased for the Museum for during my absence this will rest with him.”
- 21.
There is an excellent copy of the entire letter from Brown to von Humboldt (dated October 20/57 and written from his residence on 17 Dean Street, Soho) in John Ardagh’s “Portraits and Memorials of Robert Brown of the British Museum,” Natural History Magazine (1928) 1: 158–162, pp. 161–162.
- 22.
Charles Lyell letter of June 11, 1858, to Charles Bunbury, Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell 2 vols. ed., by his sister-in-law Mrs. Lyell (London: John Murray, 1881).
- 23.
See William T. Stearn’s The Natural History Museum of South Kensington: A History of the Museum, 1753–1980 (London: The Natural History Museum, 1998) for a detailed account of this conflict.
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Schwartz, J. (2021). Pollen Grains of Clarkia pulchella. In: Robert Brown and Mungo Park. Memoirs of The New York Botanical Garden, vol 122. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74859-3_13
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