Lithophyte. [1] A product of sea insects, which has up until recently been regarded as a plant, and still bears the name marine plant . It is true that lithophytes are very similar to plants; they have a stem, branches, twigs, etc. If you cut them transversally, you will see within concentric layers, bark, etc. However, lithophytes belong to the animal kingdom; they are made by insects, as a honeycomb is the work of bees: instead of roots, they have a base adhering to a rock, pebble, shell, or any other solid body found in the place where insects begin their construction; they raise it little by little, and branch out. The lithophytes are covered with a soft and porous bark: each pore is the opening of a small cavern in which an insect resides. This bark can be different colors in various types of lithophytes : there are white ones, yellow, reddish, purple, etc. Mr. Tournefort identifies twenty-eight species in his Institutions botaniques . [2] After removing the bark from the lithophytes , we find a substance similar to that of a tusk. When it is well polished and beautifully black, it is given the misnomer black coral . Some lithophytes are able to form a sort of network. See Sea-fan, and Marine plant.

1. The author appears to be referring to some kind of madrepore or sea-fan; today the word lithophyte refers either to marine polyps or to certain land-based plants.

2. Tournefort's Institutiones rei herbariae (1700) depicts a sea-fan under the name Lithophyton. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96917g