VOL. XXXIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. I77 



of tlie cut, and then it stuck to the bark, by the slimy substance with which it 

 is encompassed. Mr. B. also stuck one seed on the bare bark, without any 

 cutting at all : this succeeded best, and being the heart-like shape, it gave him 

 two plants. For about the 28th of March 1719, this, with two more on the 

 apple-tree, and one on the pear-tree, began to shoot ; and the growth was in 

 this manner : 



The viscous matter having stuck the seed on, and, as it dried, drawn the seed 

 close and flat down to the bark of the tree, there began, in March and April, 

 to spring out of that end of the seed, which had been toward the eye of the 

 berry, a small deep green shoot or twig, very like a short piece of a little clasper 

 of the vine. At first it arose upward from the bark, and then turning again, as 

 it approached the tree, it swelled out somewhat thicker round about the end ; 

 yet leaving the very tip or bottom quite flat, forming as it were a foot to stand 

 on ; not unlike the bottom of some brass pestles. This foot, when it came to 

 the bark, which was about May or June 17 IQ, fixed itself on it. Being thus 

 fastened at both ends, it made a little arch, whose diameter was as long as the 

 seed, or about -,v of an inch. 



In this condition it remained all that year, till about March or April 1720, 

 and then that part or end of the little seedling, which was joined to the bark, 

 at the place where the seed first shot forth, let go its hold, and raising itself 

 upward, put forth leaves, and became the head of the plant ; and the other 

 end, which sprung out first, and had taken footing in anotlier place, became 

 the root of the plant. 



It is no uncommon thing, for seeds of evergreens to be 2 years before they 

 spring out of the ground. And the change of the ends, first one of them 

 shooting out, and then the other, was what surprised most at first; but on 

 further reflection he found that nature, even in this strange plant, is uniform 

 to her other productions ; in carrying the sap firlst one way to form the root, 

 and then turning the course of it back again to send out the upper parts of the 

 plant. The strangest and most wonderful part is, that the rooting end should 

 make its first shoot into the open air, and then turn itself down, to find a pro- 

 per place to fix on. Who could have supposed that a plant, whose berry is the 

 most orbicular of any, and therefore the least likely to lie quiet in any situation, 

 and whose proper place of growth is a round and wavering bough, or the up- 

 right side of a tree, should after it is once fixed, leave its first footing, and 

 seek out a new point in the bark to grow upon. 



This is indeed the great secret of the matter, and seems to be the very thing 

 that has kept the world in ignorance, about the growing of this seed. For by 



VOL. VII. A A 



