C62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67I, 



plant ; and being divided at its loose end into divers pieces, all very close set 

 together, as feathers in a bunch, these pieces are so many true and already 

 formed, though not displayed, leaves, intended for the said trunk, and folded 

 up in the same plicature wherein they appear on the bean's sprouting. These 

 organical parts he finds composed of these similar ones, viz. 1. The cuticle, 

 extending itself over the whole bean, and herein distinguished from the coats, 

 that whereas these, on setting the bean, only administer the sap, and then 

 die ; the cuticle is with the organical parts of the bean nourished, augmented, 

 and co-extended. 2. The parenchyma itself, having some similitude to the 

 pith, while sappy in the roots and trunks of plants ; common to, and the same 

 in the lobes, radicle and plume of the bean. 3. The inner body distributed 

 throughout the parenchyma, but yet essentially different from it ; called by 

 the author the seminal root, and distinguished from the radicle, in that the 

 former is the original root within its seed, the latter is the plant-root, which 

 the radicle becomes in its growth ; the parenchyma of the seed being as it were 

 the same thing to the seminal root at first, which the mould is to the plant- 

 root afterwards ; and the seminal root being that to the plant-root, which the 

 plant- root is to the trunk. Having viewed these parts, he inquires into their 

 use, and in what manner they are the fountain of vegetation, and concurrent 

 to the being of the future plant. 



Proceeding to the root, which he finds substantially one with the radicle, 

 as are the parts of an old man with those of a foetus, he therein observes its skin, 

 cortical body, and lignous part, with the original of each of these, and the 

 pores of the two latter, and their proportions ; as also the pith, and its ori- 

 ginal, sometimes from the seed, sometimes from the cortical body, with its 

 pores and proportions : likewise the fibres of the lignous body dispersed 

 through the pith, and the cavity and pith of those fibres. Where he explains 

 how the root grows, and what is the use of its parts ; how it grows in length 

 and breadth ; and how it descends ; adding the use of the pith, viz. for the 

 better advancement of the sap, and its quicker and higher fermentation, begun 

 in the cortical body, inserted through the lignous part, by which insertions 

 the sap, like the blood of the disseminations of the arteries, is conveyed to its 

 intimate parts : our author conjecturing, that the design of all these parts is 

 the circulation of the sap. 



Having thus declared the degrees of vegetation in the root, he next shows 

 the continuance thereof in the trunk ; the observables and parts of which are, 

 1. The skin, derived from the cuticle of the seed: 2. The cortical body, 

 originated from the parenchyma of the seed : 3. The lignous body, being the 

 prolongation of the inner body, distributed in the lobes and plume of the seed : 



