GRAY'S UNITED STATES FLORA. 



43 



sant intoxication for a whole day, particularly if 

 ■water be drank after it, which augments the nar- 

 cotic principle. The desired efi'ect comes on from 

 one to two hours after taking the Fungus. Giddi- 

 ness and drunkenness result in the same manner as 

 from wine or spirits; cheerful emotions of the mind 

 are firs' produced; the countenance becomes flush- 

 ed; involuntary words and actions follow, and 

 sometimes at last an entire loss of consciousness. It 

 renders some remarkably active, and proves highlj'^ 

 stimulant to muscular exertion: by too large a 

 dose, violent spasmodic effects are produced. So 

 very exciting to the nervous system in many indi- 

 viduals is this Fungus, that the effects are often 

 very ludicrous. If a person under its influence 

 wishes to step over a straw or small stick, he takes 

 a stride or a jump sufficient to clear the trunk of a 

 tree; a talkative person cannot keep silence or se- 

 crets; and one fond of music is perpetually sing- 

 ing." • 



We are accustomed to consider some of 

 the forest trees of this country — the syca- 

 mores of the Ohio, or the giant pines of the 

 Columbia river, as at least respectable 

 specimens of size and longevity. But the}' 

 seem saplings of yesterday, when compared 

 with some of the enormous leguminous 

 trees of the forest of Brazil. Were it not 

 that Dr. Martius on whose authority the 

 statement is made, is one of the more care- 

 ful and most accurate scientific travellers, 

 one could hardly credit the pictures given 

 of the South American forests. 



'' The locust trees of the West Indies have long 

 been celebrated for their gigantic stature, and oth- 

 er species of Csesalpiniese are the Colossi of South 

 American forests. INIartius represents a scene in 

 Brazil where some trees of this kind occurred of 

 such enormous dimensions, that fifteen Indians 

 with, outstretched arms, could only just embrace one 

 of them. At the bottom thej' were 84 feet in cir- 

 cumference, and CO feet where the trunks became 

 cylimh-ical. By counting the concentric rings of 

 such parts as were accessible, he arriveil at the con- 

 clusion that they were of the age of Homer, and 

 332 years old in the age of Pythagoras; one esti- 

 mate, inileed, reduced their antiquity to 2052, while 

 another carried it up to 4104; from which he ar- 

 gues that the trees cannot but date far beyond the 

 time of our Saviour." — p. 551. 



This volume is full of matter, such as will 

 engage the profound attention of the bota- 

 nist ; but we have also made these few ex- 

 tracts to show the general reader that Bot- 

 any is no longer the dry and dusty study of 

 pistils and stamens that it once M'as. The 



Natural System forces the student of nature 

 to take a wide and expanded view, not only 

 of the structure, but of the relations, habits, 

 properties, and indeed the whole history of 

 the world, of the " flower and the leaf." 

 The author of the Vegetable Kingdom has 

 shown his usual ability in arranging his 

 grand outline view of the splendors of this 

 beautiful drapery of the earth's surface ; 

 and many more persons than the small class 

 who are interested in the systems, will find 

 pleasure and instruction in its pages. 



There are numerous important botanical 

 points of novelty and interest in this work. 

 Dr. Lindley confesses frankly and boldly 

 that he has, at the apparent cost of the 

 charge of inconsistency, considerably chang- 

 ed, modified and improved upon his previous 

 published views of the arrangement of the 

 Natural Orders, in this his last work. We 

 are glad to perceive it. Nescience has re- 

 ceived a greater impulse, or made greater 

 strides of progress, Avithin the last ten years, 

 than Botany. There is abundant proof, too, 

 of a disposition on the part of Dr. Lindley, 

 to purge science of all unnecessary techni- 

 calities — to render it appreciable to the 

 common sense mind of the age, rather than 

 to lock it up to the ultra-scientific few, which 

 we hail with satisfaction in so prominent 

 and so valuable a work as the Vegetable 

 Kingdom. 



"New Botamcal AV'^ork ix Preparation'. 

 By Prof. Gray of Cambridge, entitled The Gene- 

 RA OF THE United States Flora, illustrai ed. 

 This work is on the same plan as the Genera Plan- 

 tarum Flora Germanicce iconibus ct descripti,mi- 

 bus illusirata, by Nus von Escnbeck, alai-ge octavo 

 plate and two pages of letter press being devoted to 

 each genus: but the detailed descriptions will be in 

 English instead of Latin. The drawings, with full 

 and complete analyses of the parts of the flower, 

 fruit, and seed, made under the microscope, are 

 executed by Mr. Sprague, an artist of extraonlinary 

 skill in such subjects, under Prof. Gray's direction, 

 in every instance directly from nature. The draw- 

 ings will be engraved on stone, in the style so sue. 

 ccssfully practised at IMunich, by Mr. Prestle, an 

 artist from that city. The work \vill be published 



