Jean Senebier

He is remembered on account of his contributions to our knowledge of the influence of light on vegetation. Though Marcello Malpighi and Stephen Hales[?] had shown that a great part of the substance of plants must be obtained from the atmosphere, no progress was made until Charles Bonnet observed on leaves plunged in aerated water bubbles of gas, which Joseph Priestley recognized as oxygen. Jan Ingenhousz[?] proved the simultaneous disappearance of carbonic acid; but it was Senebier who clearly showed that this activity was confined to the green parts, and to these only in sunlight, and first gave a connected view of the whole process of vegetable nutrition in strictly chemical terms.

See Sachs, Geschichte d. Botanik, and Arbeiten, vol. ii.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.