590 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 16Q3. 



like a small round egg ; dissecting and opening this, I found no mealy substance 

 at all, but four small leaves enwrapping one another, and compassing the root 

 that lay in the midst of them. These leaves were spotted all over with little 

 specks ; and inquiring of some that had seen the cotton grow, they told me, 

 the leaves of the plant itself were thus spotted. So that we see that nature, in 

 this subject, not only wraps up the future plant, but such a little plant whose 

 very leaves are the same as on the grown tree, only smaller. 



This brought to my mind that I had observed in the eggs of some insects, 

 taken out of their bodies, none of that substance designed for the nutrition of 

 the embryo ; but that in these eggs were contained perfect and living animals, 

 so that as these animals are perfect in the egg, even while it is yet in the uterus 

 of the parent, so the cotton-seed contains a perfect plant, even while it yet 

 hangs on the tree ; and besides, that part whence the root grows is very large. 

 And as the forementioned animalcules need no yolk in the egg, being already 

 perfect, and fitted to search their food abroad, so the seeds of this plant con- 

 tain such an embryo plant as is already fit to shift for itself, and as soon as it 

 falls from the tree, the wet it meets with bursts the shell, and it strikes root, 

 and displays its leaves. 



Before I had made any observations on date stones, I thought the hard shell 

 was only the covering to the seed or kernel ; but I found it quite otherwise, for 

 that very hard part is furnished with plenty of pores, and little tubuli, serving 

 for the nourishment of the embryo plant contained in the midst, which is soft, 

 and easily cut with a sharp knife. Although I have often observed in that part 

 which is to be the root and trunk, many long slender fibrous parts, like vessels, 

 lying by one another, and some of them filled with a white substance, yet I 

 could never discover that part which gives beginning to the young leaves. 

 Some of these date stones I kept in hot moist sand, and after some time, that 

 part which is to be the root and plant, was shot out half an inch ; but yet I 

 could not discover the rudiments of any leaves, only the part shot out consisted 

 of long slender particles, something smaller than those that I had observed in 

 the beginning of the stem. 



In some large cloves which I judged perfectly ripe, I examined the inside 

 only, and found it to consist of two parts, lying one upon the other, which 

 though they lie with several angles, and each in a different manner, yet they are 

 the kernels, or medullary part ; for between these the embryo plant is placed, 

 and is joined to them by ligaments, by means of which it is nourished. The 

 manner of curing cloves in India is by soaking them in salt water, and drying 

 them in the smoke, which makes them look so black ; which when I heard of a 

 gentleman that had lived there, it put an end to my further trials. 



