John Ray

They demonstrated the ascent of the sap through the wood of the tree and supposed the sap to precipitate a kind of white coagulum or jelly which may be well conceived to be the part which every year between bark and tree turns to wood and of which the leaves and fruits are made. Raven commented that this was "The fullest and most enlightened treatment by an Englishman" of that time. He is said to have been born in the smithy his father having been the village blacksmith.

John Ray (29 November 1627 – 17 January 1705) was an English naturalist widely regarded as one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists and sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670 he wrote his name as John Wray. Thus he advanced scientific empiricism against the deductive rationalism of the scholastics.