* * * * *
Observ. XX. _Of _blue Mould_, and of the first Principles of Vegetation
arising from _Putrefaction_._
The Blue and White and several kinds of hairy mouldy spots, which are
observable upon divers kinds of _putrify'd_ bodies, whether Animal
substances, or Vegetable, such as the skin, raw or dress'd, flesh, bloud,
humours, milk, green Cheese, &c. or rotten sappy Wood, or Herbs, Leaves,
Barks, Roots, &c. of Plants, are all of them nothing else but several kinds
of small and variously figur'd Mushroms, which, from convenient materials
in those _putrifying_ bodies, are, by the concurrent heat of the Air,
excited to a certain kind of vegetation, which will not be unworthy our
more serious speculation and examination, as I shall by and by shew. But,
first, I must premise a short description of this _Specimen_, which I have
added of this Tribe, in the first Figure of the XII. _Scheme_, which is
nothing else but the appearance of a small white spot of hairy mould,
multitudes of which I found to bespeck & whiten over the red covers of a
small book, which, it seems, were of Sheeps skin, that being more apt to
gather mould, even in a dry and clean room, then other leathers. These
spots appear'd, through a good _Microscope_, to be a very pretty shap'd
Vegetative body, which, from almost the same part of the Leather, shot out
multitudes of small long cylindrical and transparent stalks, not exactly
streight, but a little bended with the weight of a round and white knob
that grew on the top of each of them; many of these knobs I observ'd to be
very round, and of a smooth surface, such as A, A, &c.
Pages:
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305