This paper investigates the emergence, in the second part of the 17th century, of a new body of experimental knowledge dealing with the chemical transformations of water taking place in plants. We call this body of experimental knowledge a “chemical history of vegetation.” We show that this chemical natural history originated, in terms of recipes and methods of investigation, in the works of Francis Bacon and that it was constructed in accordance with Bacon's precepts for putting together natural and experimental histories. Our paper covers a wide array of experimental investigations, carried out by people with different backgrounds, theoretical assumptions, and metaphysical allegiances (Thomas Browne, Robert Sharrock, Robert Boyle, Nehemiah Grew, John Beale, and John Evelyn). We claim that, despite their differences, these naturalists had a lot in common. First, they treated plants as laboratories of chemical investigation. Second, they used the experiments with plants to develop tools, hypotheses, and operational concepts, which travelled from one naturalist to the other, even when their respective explanatory vocabularies were widely different. Third, we show that some of them also manifested an interest in defining and clarifying the limits and structure of this new body of experimental knowledge, displaying, thus, a certain disciplinary unity.

中文翻译：

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将植物当作实验室：17世纪英格兰的植物化学自然史

本文研究了17世纪下半叶出现的一种新的实验知识，涉及植物中水的化学转化。我们称这种实验知识为“植被的化学史”。我们证明，这种化学自然史是从食谱和研究方法上起源于弗朗西斯·培根（Francis Bacon）的作品，并且是根据培根将自然史和实验史结合在一起的法则而构造的。我们的论文涵盖了由不同背景，理论假设和形而上的效忠者（托马斯·布朗，罗伯特·沙洛克，罗伯特·博伊尔，尼希米·格鲁，约翰·比尔和约翰·伊夫林）进行的各种各样的实验研究。我们声称，尽管它们之间存在差异，这些博物学家有很多共同点。首先，他们把植物当作化学研究的实验室。其次，他们利用对植物的实验来开发工具，假设和操作概念，即使它们各自的解释性词汇差异很大，它们也可以从一个博物学家迁移到另一个博物学家。第三，我们表明其中一些人还表现出了对定义和澄清这种新的实验知识体系的局限性和结构的兴趣，从而表现出一定的学科统一性。