THE
ANATOMY
OF
VEGETABLES
Begun.
With a General Account of Vegetation founded thereon.
CHAP. I.
Of the Seed as Vegetating.
Being to speak of Vegetables; and, as far as Inspection and consequent Reason may conduct, to enquire into the visible Constitutions and Uses of their several Parts; I chuse that Method which may with best advantage suit to what we have to say hereon: And that is the Method of Nature her self, in her continued Series of Vegetations, proceeding from the Seed sown, to the formation of the Root, Trunk, Branch, Leaf, Flower, Fruit, and last of all, of the Seed also to be sown again; all which we shall in the same order particularly speak of.
The Essential Constitutions of the said Parts are in all Vegetables the same: But for Observation, some are more convenient; in which I shall chiefly instance. And first of all, for the Seed we chuse the great Garden-Bean.
If we take a Bean then and dissect it, we shall find it cloathed with a double Vest or Coat: These Coats, while the Bean is yet green, are separable, and easily distinguished. When ’tis dry, they cleave so closely together, that the Eye, not before instructed, will judge them but one; the inner Coat likewise (which is of the most rare contexture) so far shrinking up, as to seem only the roughness of the outer, somewhat resembling Wafers under Maquaroons.
At the thicker end of the Bean, in the outer Coat, a very small Foramen presents it self: In dissection ’tis found to terminate against the point of that part which I call the Radicle, whereof I shall presently speak. It is of that capacity as to admit a small Virginal Wyer, and is most conspicuous in a green Bean.