The VEGETABLE SYSTEM. 21 
different parts of the Plant. The Seed Veffels are the part which occa- 
floned its being called Burr, and Little Burdock, for they are co- 
vered with a kind of hooked Spines. 
It is faid this Plant will cure the Evil : And one may be led to 
fuppofe there are valuable qualities in it, becaufe Nature has given it 
in a manner to the whole world : a circumftance that occurs in very 
few Plants; indeed, with refpett to America, in fo few, that it has 
been thought Europe, and that vaft country, had none in common. 
This is a problem fo much contefled ; and the prefent inftance 
decides it fo fairly, that it may not be amifs to enter upon it, fome- 
what at large, now we have fo fair an occafion. 
America furnifhed us fo many new Plants, and we received from 
thence fo little that bore even a refemblance to what we had before in 
Europe, that imagination, which always outruns judgment, and in 
its rath hafte, generally concludes upon too flight premifes, prefently 
declared there was no Plant common to the new world, as it is 
called, and the old. We had been accuftomed to receive very dif- 
ferent Plants from different places, and therefore fuppofed they pro- 
duced only different ; and when we thought this of Europe and of 
Afia, we might very well believe it of America, even in reipedt of 
all the world. But it fhould have been confldered, that different 
countries might produce the lame Plants with our own, though we 
had not received them ; and there was the more reafon to fuppofe this, 
becaufe as Angularity pointed out among many new things which 
fhould be collected, what was leaft like our own, was mofl: likely to 
be flrfl: regarded. 
Farther refearches have fliewn, that howfoever different the cli- 
mate may be in Europe and in Afla, yet there are Plants common 
to both. I have received this Xanthium from China ; and Linnasus 
declares it native of Ceylon, and of Japan. The Common Englilh 
Water Lilly, both the white and yellow, grow alfo in the Eaft- 
Indies ; and the Common Arrowhead, is as frequent in Sumatra as in 
England. It is fo with many other Water Plants; but not with all, 
nor 
