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vegetable kingdom. The physiology of these nocturnal flowers, it is evident, must 

 be of a different character from those that unfold by day and repose at night. 

 We have parallel phenomena which may be adverted to and adduced in illustra- 

 tion ; and, as in the cases previously cited, may be made the subject of direct ex- 

 periment. If an orbicular mass of the Lycopodiurn circinale be introduced into 

 warm water it will unfold. The same thing occurs with the seed-vessel of the 

 Fig-marigold ( Mesevnbryanthemum ) of the Cape when put in water. In the lat- 

 ter case, the seed-vessel expands, and the seeds are scattered when moistened with 

 the tropical rains, and under circumstances which ensure the germination of the 

 seeds. That curious plant, the Rose of Jericho^ ( Hierochuntica anastatica ) , 

 which inhabits the borders of the wilderness or the desert, is constructed with a 

 similar design, and presents analogous phenomena ; for the same agency that shuts 

 the flower of the Xeranthemwm, and closes the imbricated calix of the Centurea 

 montana, contrariwise unlocks its tiny branches. Accordingly, when it is intro- 

 duced into warm water, a little above the junction of the branches with the stem, 

 these branches gradually open, — another feature of the same beneficent arrange- 

 ment apparent " in the length and breadth" of creation. The blast of the desert 

 uproots the tiny plant, and flings it on the waves of the Nile or the Red Sea — 

 the branches open and scatter the seeds that they previously enclosed on the sur- 

 face of the stream, where they can alone germinate. In the meanwhile the 

 withered plant is carried towards the Delta of the Nile, or the embouchure of the 

 Red Sea ; and having fulfilled its office and provided for the perpetuity of its 

 kind, is engulphed in the ocean. The little seeds, floating hither and thither, bud 

 and begin to grow ; the wave at length lands them on the banks of the river, and 

 a friendly breeze wafts them back to the soil of their ancestry, where they take 

 root and spring up under the influence of tropical dews by which they are refresh- 

 ed every night. I have a specimen of the Rose of Jericho, a great part of a cen- 

 tury old, which has not lost its- susceptibility of opening when introduced into warm 

 water. 



My next communications will embrace the subjects of " The Vital Principle 

 in Plants," " Monphology," and " Spontaneous Production." 



J. Murray. 



