Foreign Vegetables. 129 
Iron, and others are drawn up entangled in the 
Nets. Sometimes, though very feldom, they meet 
with Branches which weigh three or four Pounds. 
Some doubt whether Coral ought to be num- 
bered among Plants, or not. But it grows as Plants, 
and receives Nourifhment. It alfo bears Flowers 
and Seed, or a certain feminal Subftance, at lead:, 
by which it is propagated. No one will doubt its 
Vegetation, who (hall duly confider the different 
Growths of Corals. Stones and Fragments of 
Rocks from the Bottom of the Sea are obferved 
to be covered with Points or Coral-Buds, fmall 
Branches two or three Lines in Length, and others 
fome Inches ; fc that we have no Room to doubt, 
but thefe Buds would increafe in their Growth to 
Lines and Inches, or even to fome Feet in Pro- 
cefs of Time. 
Paul Boccone has long fince obferved a nutritious 
milky Juice included in diftindt Cells under the 
Bark. As to the Flowers, the illuftrious Aloyfius 
Ferdinand Count de Marfigli has given an accurate 
Defcription of them, in the Supplement to the 
French Ephimerides for the Year 1707, and more- 
over has compofed a complete Hiftory of Coral, 
in his Natural Hiftory of Submarine Subfiances , which 
has not yet been published. 
Therefore red Coral is a marine Plant confifting 
of a twofold Subftance. The one, or the interior, 
is denfe, ftony, without vifible Pores, or Fibres, 
ftriated or marked along its Surface with fmall 
Furrows, of a deep red Colour, and void of Tafte 
and Smell. The exterior is fofter, fungous, re- 
fembling a Bark, and whilft it is under the Water, 
full of an acrid milky Juice, of a greenifh or yel- 
lowifh Colour, or yellow with a Call of red. The 
Trunk is divided into a great Number of Branches. 
It has neither Leaf nor Root •, but adheres to 
K Rocks, 
