a brick pit, from which the frost is just excluded in winter, 

 planted in a border of rich light soil, and exposed freely to 

 light and air, it grows with the greatest luxuriance, flower- 

 ing all the summer long, even to the month of November, 

 and ripening abundance of seeds. By these latter, as well 

 as by its numerous offsets, it is easily multiplied. 



Than these Alstromerias no plants evince in a more 

 striking manner the aptitude of one vegetable organ to 

 adapt itself to the functions of another. The breathing 

 pores of leaves, or stomata as Botanists name them, are 

 usually placed upon their under-side, which has also much 

 more prominent veins than the upper, and is covered with 

 hairs exclusively, if hairs are found upon only one of the 

 two surfaces. In Alstromeria, the leaves, owing to some 

 unknown cause, are always resupinate ; that is to say, in 

 consequence of a twist of their petiole, that side which is 

 born uppermost is turned undermost. Now it is very 

 curious, that the surface which under other circumstances 

 would have no breathing pores, no hairs, and not elevated 

 veins, acquires all those characters in consequence of 

 having to perform functions that are foreign to it, while the 

 other surface, in like manner, loses them. 



J. L. 



