The Debate on the Generation of Imperfect Plants in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Abstract

18th-century discussions on the generation of imperfect plants were often linked with the question of their position in the natural world,namely as whether they were part of the vegetable or mineral realm.As attested by the work of Joseph Gaertner,Johann Jakob Dillen,Pier Antonio Micheli and René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur,as well as of Antonio Vallisneri,and Lazzaro Spallanzani,the different images of nature - continuity and discontinuity - adopted by naturalists influenced their solution to this question.