y cutting transversly,
when dry, I manifestly found to be a stiff, hard, and hollow Cane, or Reed,
without any kind of knot, or stop, from its bottom, where the leaves
encompass'd it, to the top, on which there grows a large seed case, A,
cover'd with a thin, and more whitish skin, B, terminated in a long thorny
top, which at first covers all the Case, and by degrees, as that swells,
the skin cleaves, and at length falls off, with its thorny top and all
(which is a part of it) and leaves the seed Case to ripen, and by degrees,
to shatter out its seed at a place underneath this cap, B, which before the
seed is ripe, appears like a flat barr'd button, without any hole in the
middle; but as it ripens, the button grows bigger, and a hole appears in
the middle of it, E, out of which, in all probability, the seed falls: For
as it ripens by a provision of Nature, that end of this Case turns downward
after the same manner as the ears of Wheat and Barley usually do; and
opening several of these dry red Cases, F, I found them to be quite hollow,
without anything at all in them; whereas when I cut them asunder with a
sharp Pen-knife when green, I found in the middle of this great Case,
another smaller round Case, between which two, the _interstices_ were
fill'd with multitudes of stringie _fibres_, which seem'd to suspend the
lesser Case in the middle of the other, which (as farr as I was able to
discern) seem'd full of exceeding small white seeds, much like the
seed-bagg in the knop of a Carnation, after the flowers have been two or
three days, or a week, fallen off; but this I could not so perfectly
discern, and therefore cannot positively affirm it.

After the seed was fallen away, I found both the Case, Stalk, and Plant,
all grow red and wither, and from other parts of the root continually to
spring new branches or slips, which by degrees increased, and grew as bigg
as the former, seeded, ripen'd, shatter'd, and wither'd.

I could not find that it observ'd any particular seasons for these several
kinds of growth, but rather found it to be springing, mature, ripe, seedy,
and wither'd at all times of the year; But I found it most to flourish and
increase in warm and moist weather.

It gathers its nourishments, for the most part, out of some _Lapidescent_,
or other substance corrupted or chang'd from its former texture, or
substantial form; for I have found it to grow on the rotten parts of Stone,
of Bricks, of Wood, of Bones, o