574 (GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX 4. 



tnz\s. Of thefe the anthers and fligmas have al- 

 ready been (hewn to poffefs fome organs of fenfe, 

 to be nourifhed by honey, and to have the power 

 of generation like infe&s, and have thence been 

 announced amongft the animal kingdom in Sed. 

 XIII. and to thefe muft be added the buds and 

 bulbs which conilitute the viviparous offspring of 

 vegetation. The former J fuppofe to be beholden 

 to a fingle living filament for their feminal or ama- 

 torial procreation ; and the latter to the fame caufe 

 for their lateral or branching generation, which 

 they poffefs in common with the polypus, tsenia > and 

 volvox ; and the fimplicity of which is an argument 

 in favour of the iimilarity of its caufe. 



Linnaeus fuppofes, in the Introduction to his Na- 

 tural Orders, that very few vegetables were at tirft 

 created, and that their numbers were iucreafed by 

 their intermarriages, and adds, fuadent hsec Crea* 

 toris leges a fimplicibus ad compofita. Many other 

 changes feem to have arifen in them by their per- 

 petual conteft for light and air above ground, and 

 for food or moifture beneath the foil. As noted in 

 Botanic Garden, Part II. Note on Cufcuta. Other 

 changes of vegetables from climate, or other caufes, 

 are remarked in the Note on Curcuma in the fame 

 work. From thefe one might be led to imagine, 

 that each plant at fiift confilted of a fingle bulb, 

 or flower to each root, as the gentianella and daify j 

 and that in the conteft for air and light, new buds 

 grew on the old decaying flower item, fhooting 

 down their elongated roots to the ground, and that 

 in procefs of ages tall trees were thus formed, and 

 an individual bulb became a fwarm of vegetables. 

 Other plants, which in this conteft for light and air 

 were too flender to rife by their own ftrength, learn- 

 ed by degrees to adhere to their neighbours, either 

 by putting forth roots like the ivy, or by tendrils 

 like the vine, or by fpiral contortions like the honey- 



fuckle; 



