rS COLOURS OF PLANTS. 



"Compound Powder of Arum," to excuse the continu- 

 ance of its use in medicine, unless they had always pre- 

 scribed the recent plant. — Many curious remarks are to 

 be found in Grew relative to the tastes of plants, imd 

 their different modes of affecting our organs. Anatomy 

 of Plants, p. 279—292. 



To all the foregoing secretions of vegetables may be 

 added those on which their various colours depend. 

 We can but imperfectly account for the green so uni- 

 versal in their herbage, but we may gratefully ack- 

 nowledge the beneficence of the Creator in clothing the 

 earth with a colour the most pleasing and the least fa- 

 tiguing to our eyes. We may be dazzled with the 

 brilliancy of a flower-garden, but we repose at leisure 

 on the verdure of a grove or meadow. Of all greens 

 the most delicate and beautiful perhaps is displayed by 

 several umbelliferous plants under our hedges in the 

 spring. 



Some of Nature's richest tints and most elegant com- 

 binations of colour arc reserved for the petals of flowers, 

 the most transient of created beings ; and even during 

 the short existence of the parts they decorate, the co- 

 lours themselves are often undergoing remarkable varia- 

 tions. In the pretty little weed called Scorpion-grass, 

 Myosotis scorpioides, E?igl. Bot. t. 480, and several of 

 its natural order, the flower-buds are of the most deli- 

 cate rose-colour, which turns to a bright blue as they 

 open. Many yellow flowers under the influence of 

 light become white. Numbers of red, purple or blue 

 ones are liable, from some unknown cause in the plant 

 to which they belong, to vary to white. Such varieties 



