Dissecting a Bean then, the first Part occurring is its Cuticle. The Eye and first Thoughts suggest it to be only a more dense and glossy Superficies; but better enquiry discovers it a real Cuticle. ’Tis so exquisitely thin, and for the most part so firmly continuous with the Body of the Bean, that it cannot, except in some small Rag, be distinctly seen; which, by carrying your Knife superficially into the Bean, and then very gently bearing upward what you have cut, will separate and shew it self transparent. This Cuticle is not only spread upon the Convex of the Lobes, but also on their Flats, where they are contiguous, extending it self likewise upon both the _Radicle_ and _Plume_, and so over the whole Bean. This Part, though it be so far common with the Coats of the Bean, as to be like those, an Integument; yet are we in a quite different Notion to conceive of it: For whereas the Coats upon setting the Bean, do only administer the Sap, and, as being superseded from their Office, then die; as shall be seen: this, on the contrary, with the Organical Parts of the Bean, is nourished, augmented, and by a real Vegetation co-extended. Next to the Cuticle, we come to the _Parenchyma_ it self; the Part throughout which the _inner Body_, whereof we shall speak anon, is disseminated; for which reason I call it the _Parenchyma_. The Surface hereof is somewhat dense, but inwardly ’tis more porous, and of a laxer Contexture. If you view it in a Microscope, it hath some similitude to the Pith, while sappy, in the Roots and Trunks of Plants; and that for good reason, as in _Ch. 2._ shall be seen. This is best seen in green Beans. See _Fig. 2_. This Part would seem by its colour to be peculiar to the Lobes of the Bean; but as is the Cuticle, so is this also, common both to the _Radicle_ and _Plume_; that is, the _Parenchyma_ of the Bean, as to its essential substance, is the same in all three. The reason why the colour of the _Plume_, and especially of the _Radicle_, which is white, is so different from that of the Lobes, may chiefly depend upon their being more compact and dense, and thence their different Tinctures. And therefore the Lobes themselves, which are green while the Bean is young; yet being old and dry, become whitish too. And in many other Seeds, as Acorns, Almonds, the Kernels of Apples, Plums, Nuts, _&c._ the Lobes, even fresh and young, are pure white as the Radicle it self. But although the _Parenchyma_ be common, as is said, to all the Organical Parts; yet in very differing proportions. In the _Plume_, where it is proportionably least, it maketh about three Fifths of the whole _Plume_; in the _Radicle_, it maketh about five Seavenths of the whole _Radicle_; and in each Lobe, is so far over-proportionate, as to make at least nine Tenths of the whole Lobe.