STUDY XX. 143 



fides, they have large pavilions, and reft on tails 

 bent and elaftic, as a nerve; fo that when the 

 wind blows over a field of peafe, you may fee all 

 the flowers turn their back to the wind, like fo 

 many weather-cocks. 



This clafs appears to be very generally diffufed 

 over places much expofed to the winds. Dam-pier 

 relates, that hé found the defert fhores of New- 

 Guinea covered with peafe, whofe bloflbms were 

 red and blue. In our climates, the fern, which 

 crowns the fummits of hills always battered with 

 the wind and the rain, bears it's flower turned to- 

 ward the Earth, on the back of it's leaves. There 

 are even certain fpecies of plants, the flowering 

 of which is regulated by the irregularity of the 

 winds. Such are thofe, the male and female in- 

 dividuals of which grow on feparate ftems. Toffed 

 hither and thither over the earth, frequently at 

 great diftances from each other, the powder of the 

 male flowers could fecundate but a very few fe- 



fpecies of flowers poflèfs the inftinft, fhall I venture to call it ? 

 of clofing themfelves when the air is humid, and that the im- 

 pregnation of fruit-tree bloflbms is injured much more by the 

 rain than by the froft. This obfervation is of eflential im- 

 portance to gardeners, who frequently caufe the flowers of their 

 ftravvberry plants to mifcarry by watering them. As far as I 

 can judge, it would be better to water plants, in bloflbm, by 

 little trenches, according to the Indian method, rather than by 

 afperfion. • • 



male 



