VEGETABLE STRUCTUR E. 
J35 
Styles, or female parts, do from the Seed-Veffel. When the Flowering 
Shoot has ripened its Seeds, it decays entirely, and the bafe of the Root 
forms new Buds, for fucceeding years, round about the Placenta. 
All Authors have perceived there was fomething wonderfully lingu- 
lar in the Root of Colchicum. Dioscorides mentions the hollow all 
along the middle of the Bulb or Placenta, from which the 
Flower rifes : and Tournefort expreffes himfelf very fingulariy : he fays 
the Root is double, and of two kinds; the one fleOiy, and the other 
fibrous, or fibrated; tho’ both enclofed in one common Rind. Nor does 
he call it properly bulbous, but tuberous ; Gemina tuberofa, altera carnofa 
altera Fibrata. 
Indeed the confirudticn of this part of the Plant was never fufiiciently 
underfiood ; nor is it truly bulbous. 
If we would gather knowledge from an obfervation of nature, we muft 
firfi; mnderfland the objeds. The candid reader will pardon, therefore, 
this detail ; without which the courfe of the Juices, in fo limple a Ve- 
getable, could not be underfiood ; and every part of which, tho’ new, is 
certaui. It is a cuftom in this idle age, for men to doubt what themfelves 
have been too carelefs to difcover: but this Plant is common, and all that 
is laid of it may be feen eafily. 
When the heed of Colchicum is fown, if we take it up after a few days, 
we may fee eafily, that its Principle of Life, or Plantule, is an elliptick 
ring of yellowilli Flefh, altogether like that of the callous head of the Root 
of an old Plant. This Ring is compofed of Vefiels in which there is a 
portion of the original Juice; and there are Valves in them, as in the Hel- 
lebore, which open only one way. When moifture from the earth enters 
the Seed, the Juice in its Vefiels becomes thin : the alternate dilatation and 
contradion, from the effed of heat and cold, prefiing, and again relax- 
ing the whole fubftance, puts that Juice in motion : there is but one way 
it can move, becaufe the Valves will open to give itpaffage no other : there- 
fore it runs forward in that diredion. 
The Vefiels of this portion of Flefii are fo many elliptick rings every 
one returning upon itfelf, as we have feen in the Plantule of the Seed of 
Radifh. Therefore the efiential Juice of the Plant is not driven along 
Arteries, and returned by Veins, as in an animal body; but merely goes 
round in the fame Vcfiel. 
The additional moifture from the earth increafes its quantity : it fwclls 
the Veffels, and the whole Ring enlarges: fome part of it is, by the fame 
force, pufiied thro’ their pores inward ; and this hardening on the lurface, 
fenns 
