NUMBER OF PLANTS. 



213 



destroyed, yet it is impossible morally that any man 

 should be sure thereof. First I say that it is highly 

 improbable, because that I can hardly persuade myself 

 that there is any one local species of plants in the world ; 

 I mean so proper and peculiar to one individual place as 

 not to be found elsewhere. I am induced so to think, 

 because I have not observed in England any one plant so 

 proper to one place, but that I have found the same 

 either beyond sea, or at least in several places of this 

 island; and I doubt not but whatever grows naturally 

 here may be found in divers places of the same latitude, 

 or temper, beyond the seas. I am not ignorant that 

 herbarists make sundry plants proper and particular to 

 some one place. As for example, the balsam to Judaea, &c. 

 But from these I must crave leave to dissent, till they 

 have more than a negative argument to prove what they 

 affirm. Yet supposing there be such local plants (un- 

 less you place them in islands that shall be wholly 

 overwhelmed and swallowed up by the sea,) though they 

 were at present utterly extirpated by the hand of man, 

 or any accident, yet the seed, or at least seminal tinctures 

 remaining in their original and native soil, when the 

 present obstruction is removed, the earth will be apt to 

 put forth the same plant again ; so that if balsam were 

 at first native of Judaea, and not imported from abroad, 

 though it were all translated into Egypt, or elsewhere, I 

 am persuaded the natin^al earth would have again pro- 

 duced it, unless the temper of it were much altered by 

 some accidental or supernatural cause. Secondly, though 

 some species should be destroyed, it is morally impos- 

 sible that any man should be sure thereof. Eor first, no 

 man can be sure that there is any one local plant in the 

 world, unless either he himself hath visited every little 

 spot of the whole earth, or have information from intelli- 

 gent persons that know all plants, in all countries, both 

 which are utterly impossible. But if there be no local 

 plants, as I am confidently persuaded there are not, then 



