Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15771

    Bupariti seed

    Date
    10 June 1686
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p14b
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 75mm
    width (page): 112mm
    Subject
    Description
    Small piece of paper with four figures stuck to a letter by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to the Royal Society, containing 23 figures in total.

    Fig. 7: seed called Bupariti (shown with hard rind).

    Fig. 8: pip or kernel of the last-named seed, as it is taken out of its hard rind, and lies enclosed in its membrane or thin pellicle.

    Fig. 9: same seed stripped of its membrane or envelope, after it had lain in water a few hours, so that it might more easily separate from the envelope.

    Fig. 10: same seed with leaf spread and pinned, drawn through a weak magnifying glass.
    Object history
    30 June 1686, ‘Part of a letter of Mr. Leewenhoeck was read, containing his microscopical observations upon the seeds of several Indian plants, shewing how the leaves and the part designed for the root and stem are wrapped up within the said seeds’ (Birch 4:492).

    The letter and images were also published in Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Ontledingen en ontdekkingen. Van de cinnaber naturalis, en bus-poeder; van het maaksel van been en huyd; van de galnoot, kastanie en okkernoot; van de voortteelinge van eenige zaden, vergeleken by de Voortteelinge van Garnaad, krabbe, en kreeft; waar in de deugdsaamheid van het eyken-hout bestaat, en hoe het te kennen is (Leiden: Cornelis Boutesteyn, 1686), pp. 66-86.

    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Anatomia Seu interiora Rerum, Cum Animatarum tum Inanimatarum, Ope & beneficio [sic] exquisitissimorum Microscopiorum Detecta, variisque experimentis demonstrata [etc.] (Leiden: C. Boutesteyn, 1687), pp. 227-40.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
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