14 
PRINCIPIA 
8tli. Stobilus* (a cone) is a pericarpium formed of the 
amentum, being a seed-vessel composed of woody scales 
placed against each other in the form of a cone, opening 
only at the top of the scales, being firmly fixed below to a 
sort of axis, or receptacle, occupying the middle of the cone, 
as i xx pinus, thuya , cupressus, &c. 
VI. The SEMINA,f (seeds). A seed is the essence of the 
fruit of every vegetable, and is defined by LinnEeus to be a 
deciduous part of the plant, containing the rudiments of a 
new vegetable, fertilized by the sprinkling of the pollen ; and 
they are distinguished according to number, shape, texture, 
appendage, &c. A seed, properly so called, consists of the five 
following parts; to which is added the nut and propago. 
* Though Linnaeus calls Strobilus a pericarpium, from its containing the seed ; 
yet in his6re«. PI. he rather makes Use of it as a calyx in many of the cone-bearing 
genera; which'in his Fragments of a natural Method, under the order conifer ce, 
amount to seven, (viz.) cupressus, ephedra, equiietum, juniperus, pinus, taxus, 
and thuya, to which may be added banksia : In which, as the seeds are attached 
together in the form of a cone, so the plants themselves grow conically, and make 
p beautiful appearance ; all of which are evergreen, (except the larch) resinous, 
warm, stimulating, and diuretic. 
f Plants, in analogy to animals, may properly be said to be viviparous and 
oviparous; seeds are vegetable eggs, and buds the living fcetusses, or infant plants ; 
some also are only viviparous, others only oviparous.—The fecundity of some 
plants is wonderful. Dr. Milne says, from a single plant or stalk of Indian Turkey 
wheat, are produced in one summer, 2000 seeds ; in elecampane, 3000; of sun¬ 
flower, 4000 ; of poppy, 32000 ; of a spike of cat's tail, 10000 and upwards; a 
single fruit or seed vessel of tobacco contains 1000 seeds, that of white poppy 8000. 
Mr? Ray relates from experiments, that 1012 tobacco seeds are equal to one grane* 
and consequently those of the whole plant, in that proportion, amounted to 
360000: he also estimates the annual produce of a single stalk of spleen-wort to 
be upwards of one million of seeds. 
Reproduction s perhaps one of the greatest curiosities in-the animal system ; if 
a Crab or Lobster loses a leg, another will be reproduced ; a species of Earth-worm 
may be cut in two, and each part will become a perfect worm ; and the Polype (an 
aquatic insect) as also the Idirudo-viridis (the English green-leech) may be cut into 
a thousand pieces, and each part will become a perfect animal.—So in the vege¬ 
table system, M. Reynier, by depriving flowers of the sexual organs, hath discovered 
in many instances an attempt to reproduce the stamina and pistilla, for the flower 
threw out filaments from the wounded parts _ of different lengths, as was very^ ap- 
parent in the echinopsritro y geumrivdle, and in many 6f the mallows: but it aoth 
not appear from his experiments that antherae were reproduced, yet he mentions 
that some of the flowers bore seeds. Royal Academy of Sciences, Paris, 178 6* 
