no other difference ; and that now pointed out may pos- 

 sibly be either inconstant, which we suspect, or the effect 

 of cultivation, wliicli is not improbable. 



A most interesting and beautiful Greenhouse annual, 

 like the rest of its genus, possessing the curious ])roperty of 

 having the column, or the sup))ort of anthers and sLigma, 

 endowed with an irritability of so active a kind, that we 

 scarcely know of any parallel in other plants. The slightest 

 touch of a pin on the outside of it, when curved, is suf- 

 ficient to make it leap to the opposite side of the flower, 

 and invert the whole of its highly curious apparatus of 

 propagation. It is said that the motion is designed for the 

 protection of those parts from insects ; an explanation 

 which, like many others applied to the peculiarities of the 

 Vegetable Kingdom, is perhaps more fanciful than true, 

 and which only serves to shew how little we are able to 

 comprehend of the mysteries of the vegetable world. 



Our drawing was made in August. 



J. L. 



