And to confirm this, having lately the opportunity of viewing the large Plant (if I may so call it) of a Sponge _petrify’d_, of which I made mention in the last Observation, I found, that each of the Branches or Figures of it, did, by the range of its pores, exhibit just such a texture, the rows of pores crossing one another, much after the manner as the rows of eyes do which are describ’d in the 26. _Scheme_: _Coralline_ also, and several sorts of white _Coral_, I have with a _Microscope_ observ’d very curiously shap’d. And I doubt not, but that he that shall observe these several kinds of Plants that grow upon Rocks, which the Sea sometimes overflows, and those heaps of others which are vomited out of it upon the shore, may find multitudes of little Plants, and other bodies, which like this will afford very beautifull objects for the _Microscope_; and this _Specimen_ here is adjoin’d onely to excite their curiosities who have opportunity of observing to examine and collect what they find worthy their notice; for the Sea, among terrestrial bodies, is also a _prolifick_ mother, and affords as many Instances of _spontaneous_ generations as either the Air or Earth.
Observ. XXIV. _Of the surfaces of _Rosemary_, and other leaves._
This which is delineated within the circle of the second _Figure_ of the 14. _Scheme_, is a small part of the back or under side of a leaf of Rosemary, which I did not therefore make choice of because it had any thing peculiar which was not observable with a _Microscope_ in several other Plants, but because it exhibits at one view,
First, a smooth and shining surface, namely, AB, which is a part of the upper side of the leaf, that by a kind of hem or doubling of the leaf appears on this side. There are multitudes of leaves, whose surfaces are like this smooth, and as it were quilted, which look like a curious quilted bagg of green Silk, or like a Bladder, or some such pliable transparent substance, full stuffed out with a green juice or liquor; the surface of Rue, or Herbgrass, is polish’d, and all over indented, or pitted, like the Silk-worm’s Egg, which I shall anon describe; the smooth surfaces of other Plants are otherwise quilted, Nature in this, as it were, expressing her Needle-work, or imbroidery.