In 1660 Robert Sharrock, Fellow of New College, Oxford, wrote a book titled History of the Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables by the Concurrence of Art and Nature. He was concerned in its early pages to debate a live issue of the day (Bateson, 1913), namely:

The Bobarts were both professional botanists. Sharrock investigated their claim, and found ‘diverse bulbs growing as it were on the same stoole, close together, but no bulb half of the one kind, and the other half of the other’. In this age we find it hard to understand a belief in the possibility of transformation of Crocus into Gladiolus. Our reason for disbelief is partly concerned with the nature of evidence; we are not satisfied with the test for the alleged transmutation and would not have been content merely to examine the crowded underground parts. Another reason, however, relates to current ideas of the nature of species. We have a different notion of species from that of the seventeenth century.

Ray and the definition of species

It was the English naturalist John Ray (1628–1705) who was probably the first man to seek a scientific definition of species (Raven, 1950; Oswald & Preston, 2011). In his definition is an implied rejection of the sort of transmutation of species claimed by the Bobarts of Oxford, although in other passages in Ray's work he does not wholly dismiss the possibility of transmutation. For instance, he cites as reliable the case of cauliflower seed supplied by a London dealer, which on germination produced cabbage. Richard Baal, who sold the seed, was tried for fraud and ordered by the court at Westminster to refund the purchase money and pay compensation (De Beer, 1964).