664 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNOI67I. 



uses of all three, but most particularly of the attire, which he finds to be of 

 two kinds, seminy and fiory ; the seminy, made up of two parts, chives and 

 semets, the latter of which are hollow, yet not so but that they are filled up 

 with minute particles, like a powder. The florid attire is commonly called 

 thrumbs, which are several suits, of which this attire is made up : the outer 

 part of every suit, is its floret, which is the epitome of a flower, and in many 

 plants all the flower. The next part is from within its tube brought to sight, 

 and is called the sheath, likewise concave. The third part, and the innermost 

 of the suit, is the blade, which is solid, yet at its point always divided into two 

 halves; on which division there appears a powder of globulets, of the same 

 nature with those of a semet. The use of the attire he assigns to be, not only 

 ornament and distinction to us, but also food to a vast number of little animals, 

 who have their peculiar provisions stored up in these attires of flowers ; each 

 flower becoming their lodging and dining-room, both in one : though it can- 

 not as yet be determined, wherein the particular parts of the attire may be more 

 distinctly ser\'iceable, this to one animal, that to another ; or to the same ani- 

 mal, as a bee, whether this for the honey, another for their bread, a third for 

 the wax ; or whether all do only suck from hence some juice, or some may 

 not also carry some of the parts, as the globulet, wholly away, &c. 



In the following chapter he treats of the fruit, considering the number, 

 constitution, and original of the parts of an apple, bean, plum, nut, and 

 berry ; and observing, that the general composition of all fruits is one, that is, 

 their essential and vital parts, are in all the same, and but the continuation of 

 those, which in the other parts of a vegetable he has already taken notice of. 

 To which he subjoins the uses of fruits, both for man and beast, as also for the 

 seed ; to which latter it serves for supply of sap, and for protection and securi- 

 ty, the whole fruit being, by comprehension, that to the seed, what the hen, 

 by incubation, is to the egg or chick. 



In the last chapter he considers the seed again, but in its state of generation; 

 as he before examined it in its state apt for vegetation : where occurs, what in 

 the other state was either not distinctly existent, or not so apparent, or not so 

 intelligible. As first the case of the seed, and its outer coat, their figures, 

 various surface and mucilages ; with the nature of the outer coat and its ori- 

 ginal : then the original and nature of the inner coat, in which the lignous 

 body or seed branch is described. On which he observes, that all the parts of 

 a vegetable, the root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, fruit, and seed, are still 

 made up of two substantially different bodies ; and that, as every part has two, 

 so the whole vegetable, taken together, is a compound of two only, and no 

 more ; all properly woody parts, strings and fibres, being one body ; all simple 



