The generation of this Plant seems in part, ascribable to a kind of _Mildew_ or _Blight_, whereby the parts of the leaves grow scabby, or putrify’d, as it were, so as that the moisture breaks out in little scabs or spots, which, as I said before, look like little knobs of a red gummous substance.
From this putrify’d scab breaks out this little Vegetable; which may be somewhat like a _Mould_ or _Moss_; and may have its _equivocal_ generation much after the same manner as I have supposed _Moss_ or _Mould_ to have, and to be a more simple and uncompounded kind of vegetation, which is set a moving by the _putrefactive_ and _fermentative_ heat, joyn’d with that of the ambient aerial, when (by the putrifaction and decay of some other parts of the vegetable, that for a while staid its progress) it is unfetter’d and left at liberty to move in its former course, but by reason of its _regulators_, moves and acts after quite another manner then it did when a _coagent_ in the more compounded _machine_ of the more perfect Vegetable.
And from this very same Principle, I imagine the _Misleto_ of Oaks, Thorns, Appletrees, and other Trees, to have its original: It seldom or never growing on any of those Trees, till they begin to wax decrepid, and decay with age, and are pester’d with many other infirmities.
Hither also may be referr’d those multitudes and varieties of _Mushroms_, such as that, call’d _Jews-ears_, all sorts of _gray_ and _green_ Mosses, &c. which infest all kind of Trees, shrubs, and the like, especially when they come to any bigness. And this we see to be very much the method of Nature throughout its operations, _putrifactive Vegetables_ very often producing a Vegetable of a much less compounded nature, and of a much inferiour tribe; and _putrefactive_ animal substances degenerating into some kind of animal production of a much inferiour rank, and of a more simple nature.
Thus we find the humours and substances of the body, upon _putrifaction_, to produce strange kinds of moving Vermine: _the putrifaction_ of the slimes and juices of the Stomack and Guts, produce Worms almost like Earth-worms, the Wheals in childrens hands produce a little Worm, call’d a _Wheal-worm_: The bloud and milk, and other humours, produce other kinds of Worms, at least, if we may believe what is deliver’d to us by very famous Authors; though, I confess, I have not yet been able to discover such my self.