526 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I6q3. 



there are to be seen not only perfect leaves with their vessels, but the woody 

 part also, and that from whence the root shoots out, even plainer than in the 

 walnut or hazel, we may well conclude that wise nature proceeds after the same 

 manner in all its operations of generation and propagation ; every seed con- 

 taining not only the rudiments of the future plant, but also a certain fine 

 flour to nourish it, till striking root into the earth, it may thence receive its 

 nutriment. This flour is of an oily nature, and the more oily the longer will 

 the seeds live out of the ground. And as plants are not male and female, not 

 having a matrix for the first reception and sustenance of the yonng, so the 

 parent tree produces a perfect plant, wrapt up in the seed, which the earth 

 receives and nourishes. I have likewise found that of such trees as are reckoned 

 male and female, very few that bore seeds the last year have bom any this 

 year; so that I question whether the trees which we find without seeds may be 

 therefore called male trees.* 



I think it now past all doubt, that the generation of animals is from an ani- 

 malcule in the male sperm: and though I have often fancied that I have dis- 

 covered the parts and membranes of the foetus in this animalcule, so as to say 

 there is the head, there is the shoulders, and there the thighs, yet I will affirm 

 nothing herein, till I shall be so lucky as to find an animalcule large enough to 

 discover this truth, which I am not quite in despair of, since I have been so 

 fortunate as to meet with, in the small seeds of the ash, leaves and rudiments of 

 the future plant, far larger than in the seed of any plant I have yet examined. 



But to examine the matter a little closer: nature proceeds nearly after the 

 same method in her operations, as to the production of plants and animals : 

 for, as the animalcule of the male sperm cannot live in the matrix, without 

 being wrapt up in the several coverings, and receiving its nourishment ; so 

 neither can the seed of the plant subsist without continual nourishment, and has 

 also its coats to encompass it: and, as the foetus has hut one ligament, consist- 

 ing of several vessels, by which it is fastened and nourished, so all the seeds 

 which I have seen have but one ligament, made up of several vessels also, 

 which is 'sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. In fig. 5, ABC is the out- 

 ward membrane of the seed of an ash: AD the place where the seed lies, 

 which is taken out and represented by EF ; A F is the ligament by which the 

 seed EF receives its nourishment, the part A only being joined to the tree; 

 and what is more observable, the point of the seed F, where the ligament is 

 fastened, is likewise the place whence the root proceeds : so that the root is 

 the last that parts from the tree, which at first, while the seed is young, is 



* Mr. Leuwenhoeck appears to have had very imperfect and indeed erroneous views of the 

 sexual difFerences, whicli obtain in the vegetable kingdom. 



