Tut VEGETABLE SYSTEM. st 
and forne others. If I might be allowed a new term, this manner of growtli, which is 
not peculiar to the prefent Plant, fhould be called Proliferation with a Footftalk ; 
for take away the Footftalk of the firft Flower, and place it feffile on the main Stalk; 
and every one will fee the true Proliferation; The cafe is the fame at the termination 
ofevery Branch. We want terms for the diftin@ manner of the divifions of the Stalks of 
Plants; it may be well to adopt this. 
- THE country of this Plant is Ttaly ; ifit ere any Country diftinét fies my own gar= 
den, of which I entertain doubts. It becomes me to deliver them. It’s hiftory will 
give my ear and ia one will be-as able as myfelf to judge of them. | 
+ 
In he autumn of the year 1760, I recived from Italy the Seeds of many Plants then’ 
newly ripened. When I had forted them according’ to the beft guefs I could make as 
to their kinds, they were fown in fuch places as were proper for the expected Plants, ac~ 
cording to the diftribution of this work ; and confequently the Seeds of many Seabioufes, 
and of two or three Eryngiums, were fown near together : : for however authors had re= 
ceived from one another the’ notion of putting Eryngium among the umbelliferous 
Plants, Thad early eftablifhed it an Aggregate, as the moft exact examination fhews it 
now to be.. Some Scabioufes and fome Eryngiums grew from thefe Seeds, and flowered 
in 1761, but there was nothing fingular among them. In the {pring of 1762, I was 
firft ftruck with the appearance of a harp’d Leaf, utterly unknown to me, among the 
Seedlings: there grew up, and flowered this autumn, the Plant here reprefented ; and © 
there feem good Seeds. formed. 
Ir I had known fuch a Plant before, or if any author had defcribed {nch a one, it 
‘would not have appeared very wonderful to me, that it fhould appear a fecond year from 
fowing, though not the firft; for a very little practice in gardening, will fhew how apt 
Seeds are to lie dormant a longer time than that: but as I know of no fuch Plant, and 
as it appeared only a fecond feafon; and moft of all, -as it feems to me in its afpeé an 
unnatural Plant, I have fufpicions that it is a Mongrel or Mulifh Plant, ge oe be- 
tween the flat Eryngio, and fome one of the Scabioufes. 
We know ee mixtures Sunvetides happett among Plants ; pethaps they ate more 
frequent than we are aware. In general, the Plants produced thus are foon loft, be- 
caufe their Seeds will not grow; but this is not always the cafe. I have been told 
that the Dittany produced between the Sypline and Cretan, produces Seeds which 
fometimes vegetate; and I can {peak with certainty of a Plant between the Welch 
Veronica and the common kind, of which I have many Plants now raifed from pred, 
-andliving. ae Santee 
We are not now to learn that a Mulifh Plant may be siglo between two Plants of 
different Genera ; but as the mixture is lefs regular, perhaps it is a law of nature that 
the Seeds of fuch thall not grow: we fpeak much in the dark of thefe things; for they 
want much, and have had yet very little obfervation ; but from what I have yet feen, I think 
it will be found that among Mulifh Plants, the Seeds of fuch as are produced between 
two fpecies of the fame Genus, will fometimes, though but feldom, grow; and that by 
degrees, the new offspring will lofe all that it had of likenefs to the female, and be- 
ee O | | come 
eo y 
