•N THB COROLLAS OF FI.OW£RY. IJ$ 



tniring the conldvanceof the whole: it is only to be con^ 

 ceived when seen. But to my dear countrywomen in parti- 

 cular 1 would recommend such employment : I am most 

 anxious to interest and excite to study those of my own sex, 

 who ure still ignorant how much pleasure is attached to the 

 developement of the human mind. The e contemplation* 

 are not puerile, as many may think; they apeak to the 

 heart. 



Let me now turn to the rainbow, and endeavour to show jronnation «^ 

 how exact the resemblance is. It would be superfluous the rainbow 

 here to enter into a detail of the manner in which the rain- colounnfi«^* 

 bow is formed by the refraction and reflection of the solar flowers, 

 tay 8 by drops of water ; and since we know this to be the 

 lase, what should prevent flowers, farmed of little else from 

 receiving part of their hues by this means, while the colour 

 given them is increased and embellished by the water it in 

 seen through, and the sparkling light, which passes into 

 most petals and adds to their beauty ? To try the efl^ect I 

 got a quantity of extremely small glass bubbles of water 

 blown for me, and placed them as in a petal — in rows. AU 

 though infinitely larger, yet they appeared a petal extremely 

 magnified. I then covered them with a gauze, painted to 

 represent the flower, and truly did it imitate the sort of 

 brightness and brilliancy it was intended to represent. 



In the Jacobean lily the surface is formed of an extremely Jacobwn !Uy- 

 thin skin of red liquid, but the pabulum is composed 

 of round bubbles of yellow water, which together appear 

 orange; but what causes that fiery bright spark, which ani- 

 mates the whole ? the prismatic scarlet, which proceeds 

 from that point of light the circular ball always gives, and 

 which sparkling, has puzzled so many botanists? This is 

 easy to be seen when the upper surface is taken ofl'; for 

 it then really dazzles the eyes. What causes the orange L,]y and 

 tint in the lily of that colour, or the crown-imperial? Its cf<^wa-imp»v 

 first skin is red, and its next green. I appeal to any painter *^ ' 

 to say, whether these will make orange? and yet the flower 

 is truly so. What causes that exquisite tint of green \u 

 the andromeda pulverulenta, for the upper skiu and pabu» 

 lura are all white ? probably here it is reflection, which it 

 •ften is, at the bottom of a flower, ox the deepening of a bud* 



The . 



