"there are almost infinite stories of strange conjunctions which urge earnestly for credit; some of incisions made upon animal bodies: the lord of pieresh had a present made him of a plum tree branch which bore blossoms and leaves which sprang from a thorn that grew in the breast of a shepard, this shepheard having gotten this thorn by falling upon a plum-tree and it was also reported that there was a spainard lately that nourish't a bramble that grew out of his belly."Robert Sharrock, 1672, History of Propagation and Improvement of Vegetables