Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/188

Rh and the Cods of an indifferent cize; but in others, as C, I found them begin to have little short stalks, or stems; in others, as D, those stems were grown bigger, and larger; and in others, as at E, F, H, I, K, L, &c. those stems and Cods were grown a great deal bigger, and the stalks were more bulky about the root, and very much taper'd towards the top, as at F and L is most visible.

I did not find that any of them had any seed in them, or that any of them were hollow, but as they grew bigger and bigger, I found those heads or Cods begin to turn their tops towards their roots, in the same manner as I had observ'd that of Moss to do; so that in all likelihood, Nature did intend in that posture, what she does in the like seed-cods of greater bulk, that is, that the seed, when ripe, should be shaken out and dispersed at the end of it, as we find in Columbine Cods, and the like.

The whole Oval O O O O in the second Figure of the 12. Scheme represents a small part of a Rose leaf, about the bigness of the little Oval in the hillock, C, marked with the Figure X. in which I have not particularly observ'd all the other forms of the surface of the Rose-leaf, as being little to my present purpose.

Now, if these Cods have a seed in them so proportion'd to the Cod, as thole of Pinks, and Carnations, and Columbines, and the like, how unimaginably small must each of those seeds necessarily be, for the whole length of one of the largest of those Cods was not part of an Inch; some not above, and therefore certainly, very many thousand of them would be unable to make a bulk that should be visible to the naked eye; and if each of these contain the Rudiments of a young Plant of the same kind, what must we say of the pores and constituent parts of that?

The generation of this Plant seems in part, ascribable to a kind of Mildew or Blight, whereby the parts of the leaves grow scabby, or putrify'd, as it were, so as that the moisture breaks out in little scabs or spots, which, as I said before, look like little knobs of a red gummous substance.

From this putrify'd scabb breaks out this little Vegetable; which may be somewhat like a Mould or Moss; and may have its equivocal generation much after the same manner as I have supposed Moss or Mould to have, and to be a more simple and uncompounded kind of vegetation, which is set a moving by the putrifactive and fermentative heat, joyn'd with that of the ambient aerial, when (by the putrifaction and decay of some other parts of the vegetable, that for a while staid its progress) it is unfetter'd and left at liberty to move in its former course, but by reason of its regulators, moves and acts after quite another manner then it did when a coagent in the more compounded machine of the more perfect Vegetable.

And from this very same Principle, I imagine the Misleto of Oaks, Thorns, Appletrees, and other Trees, to have its original: It seldom or never growing on any of those Trees, till they begin to wax decrepid, and decay with age, and are pester'd with many other infirmities.

Hither also may be referr'd those multitudes and varieties of Mushroms, such as that, call'd Jews-ears, all sorts of gray and green Mosses, &c. which Rh