A systeme of anatomy, treating of the body of man, beasts, birds, fish, insects, and plants illustrated with many schemes, consisting of variety of elegant figures, drawn from the life, and engraven in seventy four folio copper-plates. And after every part of man's body hath been anatomically described, its diseases, cases, and cures are concisely exhibited. The first volume containing the parts of the lowest apartiments of the body of man and other animals, etc. / by Samuel Collins ...

CHAP. XXXVII. The Sap-Vessels of Plants.

THe various Tubes entring into the Co••page of Plants, * 1.1 are somewhat akin in likeness to the Viscera of other Animals (which are more distinct in them) as they are curious Systemes, integrated of innumerable ob∣long round Vessels, as so many Cylindrical Channels, chiefly constituting the fine frame of Plants.

The Antients not well versed in the knowledge of the several parts belonging to Trees, have treated of them in a more general notion of Wood and Bark, which in truth may be more clearly distinguished into Veins or Vessels, * 1.2 as various lacteal, Gummy and Resinous Chan∣nels, transmitting divers Liquors into the Trunks and Branches of Plants, which do somewhat resemble the several Vessels of Animals, conveying Chyle, Vital, Nervous, and Lymphatick Liquor; so that the milky hu∣mor resembleth the Chyle, and the Sap the Blood, and their Resinous and Gummy Juyces being transparent, do in some manner represent the Nervous and Lymphatick Juyce.

And these different Liquors do not only hold Analogy with those of Animals, but their Vessels too in structure, (as they are Cylinders adorn∣ed with a round oblong Figure) made up of numerous Fibres rarely in∣terwoven with each other. * 1.3

In Trees the greater Cylinders are beset with many minute Pipes, * 1.4 which confining close to them in an orbicular Figure, do make use of the sides of the larger Tubes; so that every part of a Tree is integrated of va∣rious ranks of greater and less concave Fibres, resembling the larger and smaller Branches of Vessels in Animals.

And the various Ducts of several Liquors in Plants and Trees, do not only in some sort resemble the Vessels of a humane Body in Figure, * 1.5 but in Divarication too; because the ascendent and descendent Trunks of Ar∣teries and Veins, as well as Sap-Vessels, take their progress the whole length of the Body; and as Animals have fruitful Branches running ho∣rizontally from their Trunks into the Muscular parts, and substance of the Viscera; So in like manner in Plants and Trees, the cortical Branches of Vessels are carried transversly from the Bark through the body of the Trunk toward the Pith, and from it too many lignous Vessels are propaga∣ted through the Compage of the Wood to the Bark.

And as the Viscera of Animals are collective Bodies of different Ves∣sel as Arteries, * 1.6 Veins, Nerves, and Lympheducts, as so many Channels, con∣veying several Liquors of Blood, Sucous Nervosus & Lympha; so after some manner the Trunks and Branches of Firre, and Pine-tree, &c. are alike the Viscera of Animals in their various Tubes, fraught with Gumms, Resine, interspersed with Vessels of Sap, which for the most part run per∣pendicularly from the Root, through the Trunk to the top, and some of those Vessels pass Horizontally, as so many Diametral Rays from the Bark through the Body to the Pith, and others from it to the Bark, from

the circumference to the Center, so that these transverse Vessels have a sem∣blance with the Veins and Arteries of Animals, which take their progress from the Skin, through the Trunk and Limbs to the inward Recesses of the Viscera.

The curious frame of Plants are made up of different Cylinders, * 1.7 fine∣ly set together, and Engraven with numerous Cells (adorned with se∣veral shapes and sizes, placed between the Sap-vessels) as so many little Cisterns, supplying the Vessels with different Liquors, exalted by airy Particles, (impregnated with sulphureous and saline Atomes) transmitted by proper Cylinders into the Concave Areae, big with alimentary Juyces, which after a due Fermentation, are refined by the extremities of nume∣rous different Sap-Vessels, as so many Colatories (of various Figures and Magnitudes,) holding Analogy in some manner with the minute Glands of the Viscera, which are Systemes composed of numerous Vessels, whose Extremities are distinguished by their various Perforations,, receptive of such Liquors, as hold Conformity with them in the likeness of Shape and Size.

Notes

• * 1.1

  The various Tubes of Plants, are somewhat alike to the Viscera of Animals.
• * 1.2

  Plants are furnished with many sorts of Ves∣sels.
• * 1.3

  The Figure of the Sap-Ves∣sels,
• * 1.4

  The greater Sap-Vessels are beset with many small Pipes.
• * 1.5

  The Divari∣cations of the Sap-Vessels do somewhat resemble the Divarication of the San∣guiducts. The progress of the Sap-Vessels, is for the most part perpendicu∣lar, and sometimes horizontal.
• * 1.6

  The Vessels of Plants agree in some sort with those of Animals, as containing many Li∣quors.
• * 1.7

  Between the Sap-Vessels are seated many Areae, as so many Cisterns. of different Liquor.