Scientific Intelligence. — Botany, 389 



the plant increased. Their surface, seen with a microscope in 

 a strong light, exhibited itself commonly speckled with red and 

 green, in the variety with the red flower ; but it is all green in 

 the white flower variety. The interior is filled with a colour- 

 less liquid, through which the light is tefracted to a focus. I 

 frequently saw at the extremity of this point a small limpid 

 drop, as if a part of the interior liquid, dilated by increase of 

 temperature, or secreted by the vital action, had flown out. 

 These observations lead me to think, that the development of 

 the flame around the plant might be the result of simultaneous 

 inflammation, or almost instantaneously propagated from these 

 numerous utricles filled with essence. On this supposition, the 

 heat of summer was not necessary for the actual production of 

 the phenomenon, but merely for the maturation of the inflam- 

 mable liquid contained in the utricles ; once the utricles were 

 formed and ripened, the cold or heat of the time could not 

 interfere any more than the time of the day. The ignition 

 must be effected merely by the contact of the inflamed body, or 

 at least merely by its contact, in order to make the utricles burst. 

 In fine, it must be accomplished with the characters of suction 

 and propagation suitable to small globules lying in juxtaposi- 

 tion, filled with an inflammable liquid, not with the instantane- 

 ous simultaneousness of a volume of gas. This is the mode of 

 viewing the phenomenon, to which I have been led by all the 

 experiments which I have made, some of which I shall here 

 ^tate. On the 2Cth of April 1830, I tried to apply the flame 

 of a match to the peduncle of a flower of the red variety, which 

 appeared to me already charged with a certain number of utri- 

 cles considerably distended. I did not obtain continued inflam- 

 mation, but mere local crepitation, similar to those produced by 

 jets of the essence contained in the orange peel, when pressed 

 and held near the flame of a taper. The remainder of the plant, 

 where the utricles were smaller and fewer, did not present even 

 this phenomenon. I repeated the experiment the following 

 year, and at the same lime of the year, with similar results. In 

 the parts where the crepitations were produced, the utricles ap- 

 peared obliterated and blackened. On the 15th of May 1830, 

 several flower-stalks had acquired full development : the utricles 

 were considerably expanded, and closely set on their surface. 



