340 i Flora Unveiled
incrementally after fertilization has taken place. Although Malpighi had made similar
observations, Camerarius was the first to show that epigenesis in plants was dependent on
pollination.
Tübingen Under Siege: Science in a Time of WarUpon his return to the University of Tübingen in 1687, Camerarius was awarded the hon-
orary title of Professor Extraordinary of Medicine, and when Metzger, the Director of
the Hortus Medicus, died in October of the same year, Camerarius was appointed as his
replacement. Shortly afterward, he began the landmark experiments with monoecious and
dioecious flowers that would culminate in the publication of De Sexu Plantarum Epistola
in 1694, the year of Malpighi’s death.
Given the frequent military incursions by French troops, it is remarkable that Camerarius
was able to conduct his pollination studies at all. Forty years previously, Germany had been
devastated by the Thirty Years War (1618– 48). Tübingen’s wealth in silver had been plun-
dered and the university’s faculty severely depleted. The end of the war brought needed
relief, but a fresh conflict— the War of the Grand Alliance—broke out in 1688, just as
Camerarius was beginning his experiments. Once again frequent evacuations wreaked
havoc on the university, making serious scientific research all but impossible. The logisti-
cal nightmare of transporting laboratory equipment to safety whenever a French regiment
encamped outside of town must have been a disheartening and frustrating experience for
Camerarius and his colleagues.
Camerarius was related by marriage to the town hero credited with saving the city from
pillage by the French armies.^46 Camerarius’s younger sister, Agnes Susanna, was married to
Johannes Osiander, a professor of theology and Chancellor of the university, and, in 1688,
Osiander had successfully negotiated an agreement with French officers to spare the city in
exchange for a large ransom. As a result, Tübingen and its university was spared, which may
explain why Camerarius was able to carry out his pollination studies apparently without
interruption for three years. By 1694, however, the war had become so disruptive that he was
forced to terminate his experiments. At the end of De Sexu Plantarum Epistola, Camerarius
complained bitterly about the misery inflicted on Tübingen during this period, which he
described as “a time of war turbulence and public calamity in the fatherland.”
The old Hortus Medicus, where Camerarius conducted the first controlled experiments
demonstrating the sexual role of pollen, was located behind the Alte Aula (Old Auditorium)
of the Tübingen campus, overlooking the tranquil, tree- shaded banks of the Neckar River.
The Alte Aula is still there, but sadly, Camerarius’s experimental garden has been paved over
to make a parking lot.
Camerarius’s Historic Appeal to ExperimentCamerarius published his Epistola in 1694 as an open letter to his friend, Michael Bernhard
Valentin, a professor of medicine in Giessen. Although some of his preliminary findings had
already been published in the Ephemerides Germanicae Academiae Caesalpeo Leopoldinae
Naturae Curiosum, the journal of the German scientific society, most of his experiments
were summarized in the Epistola. It was printed as a small, palm- sized volume, 110 pages