Grew, Nehemiah (1641–1712)

English botanist and physician who made some of the early microscopical observations of plants. He studied the structure of various plants' anatomy and introduced the term ‘parenchyma’ to refer to the ground tissue, or unspecialized cells, of a plant. His observations were included in his book The Anatomy of Plants (1682).

Grew and his contemporary Marcello Malpighi were responsible for significant advances in the understanding of botanical anatomy due to their widespread use of the light microscope. He was greatly influenced by the brilliant philosopher and scientist Robert Hooke, whose treatise Micrographia 1665 had become an established text on the microscopic observations of plant life at that time.

Grew was born in Mancetter, Warwickshire and studied for a BA at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. However, because he was a religious nonconformist, he had to move to Leiden in Holland to study for an MD. Following his graduation, he practised medicine in Coventry and then moved to London in 1672 so that he could be more involved in the work of the Royal Society. He was secretary of the Royal Society 1677, which gave him access to the Society's microscope, a valuable asset to a would-be plant anatomist. Because he did not have any pupils, many of his unpublished results were lost after his death.