PUBESCENCE. lo^ 



dements of the loftiest towers, covering the decayed 

 trunk with a borrowed foliage, and giving beauty even 

 to the mouldering ruin/'* 



Those of the common Creeper are branched, and 

 their minute extremities cling powerfully to the hard- 

 est, smoothest rocks, and therefore it is admirably 

 calculated to screen the cheerless wall from our view. 

 It is in fact, the only Ivy of which we can boast, for 

 that of which the poets sing, is not an American plant. 

 The tendrils of the laughing Vine, have long been con 

 sidered the fittest emblem which joy could wear : 

 probably because some votary of cheerful mirth, had 

 associated the juice of the grape with the tendril which 

 supports it. 



4. PUBESCENCE. 



This term includes all the down and hairs with which 

 the surface of plants is invested. Sometimes it appears 

 like dust or powder scattered over the surface of the 

 vegetable ; sometimes like fine silky down, communi- 

 cating a silvery whiteness as in the common Silver-weed, 

 Potentilla anserina ; sometimes it is velvet like, as in 

 the leaf of Sida Mutilon ; and sometimes it assumes a 

 woolly appearance, the hairs being curled and matted 

 together, as in the leaf of the Mullein ; sometimes 

 these hairs are few and scattered as in leaves of Noble 

 Liverwort ; sometimes they are long and shaggy, some- 

 times they are short and pungent, arising from small 

 eminences as in many of the rough-leaved plants. 



None of the appendages are more affected by culti- 

 vation than these, and ttetefore it has been establishec 



* Keith. 



