m 



Sensibilitt/ of Vegetables, 



more easily to receive the pollen. This circumstance may 

 also be seen in the Parnassia palustris (grass of Parnassus). 

 Also in the common berberry, if the stamens be touched in 

 the inner part, near the bottom, with a pin, they immediately 

 start forward, and, dashing their anthers against the stigma, 

 impregnate the pistil. The Amaryllis formosissima is furnished 

 with a drop of clear liquid, which in the morning protrudes 

 from the pistil, and in the evening is again absorbed, having 

 collected the *polleri, whose vapour renders it turbid, and 

 whose minute husks afterwards remain upon the pistil. The 

 innumerable insects which glitter about the different flowers 

 are of infinite use in bringing about the impregnation of 

 the pistil : the honied bee, and the various tribes of moths 

 and butterflies that glitter in the sun, all aid in performing 

 this one great office of nature, and lead us irresistibly to the 

 conclusion that nothing is made in vain. 



The great annual sun-flower is also a very curious plant. 

 According to Sir J. Smith its compressed stalk enables it 

 to turn easily ; and when the sun rises in the morning, the 

 action of the heat on the marginal florets, which act as wings, 

 makes it turn its flower constantly towards the sun till even- 

 ing, when, ^^by its elasticity, it recovers its former position, 

 ready to meet the sun again in the east. My own experience, 

 however, is certainly at variance with this account. I have 

 frequently, from a wish to observe so curious a circumstance, 

 examined the plant at different times; yet, though I have 

 watched it with great care, I never could witness the inclination 

 towards the sun above spoken of. So far from it, the flowers 

 were always facing every quarter of the horizon. 



The calyces, in some instances, are possessed of a peculiar 

 delicacy of structure, of which none is more worthy of notice 

 than that of the violet. The seeds of the class Syngenesia, 

 also, are so light, that they are carried away, when ripe, 

 by the slightest breath of wind, far from their original 

 place of growth. It is by this lightness of the seeds of many 

 plants that the most barren rocks, in the course of time, be- 

 come clothed with lively verdure. Mosses and lichens first 

 fix their slender and insinuating fibres into the crevices of 

 the rocks, and, as they die away, are again reproduced, 

 depositing a light vegetable mould, sufficient to nourish 

 the grasses and other herbaceous plants ; in the course of 

 years vegetation progressively increases ; and, by the aid of 

 birds, trees and shrubs are planted, and what was before a 

 barren waste becomes covered with woods and pastures. 



Nm MonJctoriy February 12. 1830. T. E. L. 



