304 



JUMPING SEEDS. 



capitula are a good deal larger, and are on much shorter peduncles ; 

 the fertile and barren perigonia are not consolidated into one mass, but 

 easily separable. ^ 



Jumping or Moving Seeds. 



A gentleman, belonging to an eminent mercantile Mexican Company, 

 lately did me the favour to communicate the fact, that a Mexican travel- 

 ler had just arrived at Southampton, bringing, what he considered to he 

 a great curiosity and upon which he set a very high price, namely some 

 jumping or moving seeds, obtained from the coast of the Pacific. They 

 had excited great interest among the passengers of the Steamer, and 

 many a weary hour had no doubt been lightened by witnessing their 

 gambols and speculating on the cause of motion. Fortunately our 

 English Minister at Mexico, Percy W. Doyle, Esq., had obtained some 

 of these seeds, and. he forwarded them to England by the same mail 

 steamer to which we have just alluded ; and through the kindness of 

 George Lenox-Conyngham, Esq., of the Foreign Office, and of the Hon. 

 Charles Augustus Murray (lately our Minister Plenipotentiary for Swit- 

 zerland, and now appointed to Persia, both great friends to the Royal 

 Gardens, and the Museum), I was soon in possession of some. Mar- 

 vellous and startling did their movements appear. 



^ Eveiy one is familiar with the hygrometric contortions of a species of 

 wild Oat. Here was nothing of that kind : the seeds were altogether 

 of another structure, about the size of a small horse-bean. Their real 

 nature wiU be best understood by saying that the fruit to which they 

 belong has an affinity to that of an EupUrUa or Spurge, and very much 

 resembles the common Caper-Spurge of our gardens, which, as is well 

 known, is a three-lobed fruit, or capsule, and separates, when ripe, into 

 three portions, or three seeds, each surrounded by its hard shell; and 

 the shape of each of these shelly seeds is convex on the back, and nearly 

 plane, having, however, a slightly projecting ridge or keel in the centre, 

 on the front, or inner side. If asked to guess at the plant to which 

 the seed belongs, I should say, to some species of Colliguaya*, a com- 



shrub on the coast of Chili. Wlien 



three, were placed on the convex back, they shortly began to stir,— first 



vol. i, p. 142. t. 40. 



figured 



