Moss Martin Frobene Ledermuller

Study of moss viewed by microscope, under magnification. With a circled inset detail showing plant at normal size, to give scale.

Plate 14 from Amusement microscopique, tant pour l'esprit que pour les yeux, contenant... estampes... d'apres nature...by Martin Frobene Ledermuller, plates volume (Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, Nuremburg, 1764).

Inscribed above: ‘TAB.XIV.’ Inscribed below: ‘A.W.W. exc.’

The accompanying text is headed: ‘Table XIV. De la Mousse de Terre.’ The author comments that: ‘L'autre jour après avoir fait apporter un Rosier, que j'avois dans ma Cave, je trouvai toute la Surface de la Terre dans lanquelle il est planté, couverte de quelque chose de Verd-terni, qui resembloit à du moisi...J'examinai ensuite une seule Plante; puis la mettant dans le Microscope solaire, il me la réprésenta a la Paroi comme le plus gros Arbuste d'environ 4 Pieds de haut.’ [The other day, after having brought a rose-bush, which I had in my cellar, I found the whole surface of the earth in which it is planted tarnished all over with something green, resembling a mildew. I examined a single plant; putting it in the solar microscope, which presented it on the wall as if the largest shrub of about four feet high].

Martin Frobene [Frobenius] Ledermuller (1719-1769) German naturalist was employed in various capacities as a notary, turning to microscope studies after an illness induced temporary deafness.