The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
The _Arbustetum_ or Thicket on the head of the Teazell, may be observed
in this order: And he that considereth that fabrick so regularly
palisadoed, and stemm'd with flowers of the royal colour; in the house
of the solitary maggot, may finde the Seraglio of _Solomon_. And
contemplating the calicular shafts, and uncous disposure of their
extremities, so accommodable unto the office of abstersion, not condemn
as wholly improbable the conceit of those who accept it, for the herb
_Borith_.[150] Where by the way, we could with much inquiry never
discover any transfiguration, in this abstemious insect, although we
have kept them long in their proper houses, and boxes. Where some wrapt
up in their webbs, have lived upon their own bowels, from _September_
unto _July_.
[150] _Jer._ 2, 22.
In such a grove doe walk the little creepers about the head of the
burre. And such an order is observed in the aculeous prickly plantation,
upon the heads of several common thistles, remarkably in the notable
palisados about the flower of the milk-thistle; And he that inquireth
into the little bottome of the globe-thistle, may finde that gallant
bush arise from a scalpe of like disposure.
The white umbrella or medicall bush of Elder, is an Epitome of this
order: arising from five main stemms Quincuncially disposed, and
tollerably maintained in their subdivisions. To omit the lower
observations in the seminal spike of Mercurie weld, and Plantane.
Thus hath nature ranged the flowers of Santfoyne, and French honey
suckle; and somewhat after this manner hath ordered the bush in
_Jupiters_ beard, or house-leek; which old superstition set on the tops
of houses, as a defensative against lightening and thunder. The like in
Fenny Seagreen or the water Souldier;[151] which, though a military name
from Greece, makes out the Roman order.
[151] Stratiotes.
A like ordination there is in the favaginous Sockets, and Lozenge seeds
of the noble flower of the Sunne. Wherein in Lozenge figured boxes
nature shuts up the seeds, and balsame which is about them.
But the Firre and Pinetree from their fruits doe naturally dictate this
position. The Rhomboidall protuberances in Pineapples maintaining this
Quincuncial order unto each other, and each Rhombus in it self. Thus are
also disposed the triangular foliations, in the conicall fruit of the
firre tree, orderly shadowing and protecting the winged seeds below
them.
The like so often occurreth to the curiosity of observers, especially in
spicated seeds and flowers, that we shall not need to take in the single
Quincunx of Fuchsius in the grouth of the masle fearn, the seedie
disposure of Gramen Ischemon, and the trunck or neat Reticulate work in
the codde of the Sachell palme.
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