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"On account of likeness alone, and not substance, the Philosophers compare their material to a golden tree with seven branches, thinking that it encloses in its seed the seven metals, and that these are hidden in it, for which reason they call it a living thing. Again, even as natural trees bring forth divers blossoms in their season, so the material of the stone causes the most beautiful colours to appear when it puts forth its blossoms. Likewise they have said that the fruit of their tree strives up to heaven, because out of the philosophic earth there arises a certain substance, like to the branches of a loathsome sponge. Whence they have put forward the opinion that the point about which the whole art turns lies in the living things of nature [in vegetabilibus naturae] and not in the living things of matter; and also because their stone contains within it soul, body, and spirit, as do living things."
- Gerhard Dorn, 'Congeries Paracelsicae chemicae de transmutatione metallorum'
"I beg, with the eyes of the mind look upon this little tree of a grain of wheat according to all its circumstances, so that, as the tree of the Philosophers, you may be able to plant it in the same way and to promote the increase of its own radical moisture for growing in such a manner that the most noble gold and silver (in whose nature all the heavenly and earthly virtues of the elements, prepared, are infused) may grow and, as in an incorrupt seed, may ripen. Taking care lest the aforesaid gold and silver be dissolved from their own glue by any mineral matter, or by strong water, and similar things." - - Instructio patris ad filium de arbore solari (Instruction of a father to his son concerning the Solar Tree), Theatrum Chemicum, vol. VI (1661).
Different variations of Plate 6 from Splendor Solis - "The Other Parable"
- Instructio patris ad filium de arbore solari (Instruction of a father to his son concerning the Solar Tree), Theatrum Chemicum, vol. VI (1661).