SPRENGEL, Christian Konrad.

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Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen. First edition of the author's elegantly engraved magnum opus. This practical application of Linnaeus's system extended Kölreuter's identification of the importance of insects to pollination. It was also essential to Darwin's demonstration of natural selection. The many engraved plates illustrate in painstaking detail the pollination process.Sprengel (1750-1816), an amateur German botanist and teacher, was the first to recognize that flowers functioned to attract insects and that nature favoured cross-pollination. Until Sprengel, "few investigations had been made into the process by which pollen is handled by plants, and hardly anyone realized the vital role played by insects in pollination" (Linda Hall Library). He also noted that the anatomy of flowers often allowed only one species of insect access to its nectar and pollen. "He recognized, as Kölreuter had not, that the entire structure of the flower was geared to this method of fertilization, and [in this book] was the first to describe and illustrate (in nearly 500 species) the principal adaptive floral mechanisms concerned in pollination" (Norman).One of Sprengel's earliest appreciators was James Edward Smith (1759-1828), the founder of the Linnean Society, who in 1794 named the pink swamp-heath Sprengelia incarnata. Darwin greatly admired Das entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, which he read in 1841. He elaborated on Sprengel's observations in the

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