204 



JOUBNAL OF HORTICULTORE AND COTTAOE GARDENEB. 



[ September 2, 1876. 



glands in the centre of a leaf, these transmit a motor impulse 

 to the marginal tentacles. The nearer ones are fiist affected, 

 and slowly bend towards the centre, and then those farther off, 

 until at last all become closely inflected over the object. This 

 takes place in from one hour to four or five or more hours. The 

 differenctt in the time required depends on many circumstances 

 — namely, on the si^e of the object and on its nature — that is, 

 whether it contains soluble mutter of the proper kind ; on the 

 vigour and age of the leaf; whether it has lately been in action, 

 and, according to Nitschke,* on the temperature of the day; 

 as likewise seemed to me to be the case. A living insect is a 

 more efficient object than a dead one, as in struggling it presses 

 against the glands of many tentacles. An insect buch as a fly, 

 with thin integuments, through which animal matter in solu- 

 tion can readily pass into the surrounding dense secretion, is 

 more efficient in causing prolonged inflection than an insect 

 with a thick coat, such as a beetle. The inflection of the 

 tentacles takes place indifferently in the light and darkness ; 

 and the plant is not subject to any nocturnal movement of so- 

 called sleep." 



" I have repeatedly found that the tentacles remain clasped 

 for a much longer average time over objects which yield soluble 

 nitrogenous matter than over those, whether organic or iuorganio, 

 which yield no such matter. After a period varying from one 

 to seven days the tentacles and blade re-expand, and are then 

 ready to act again. I have seen the same leaf inflected three 

 successive times over insects placed on the disc ; and it would 



probably have acted a greater number of times 



Particles of carbonate and phosphate of ammonia and of some 

 other salts, for iustance sulphate of zinc, likewise increase the 

 secretion." 



" The absorption of animal matter from captured insects 

 explains how Droaera can flourish in extremely poor peaty soil, 

 in some cases where nothing but Sphagnum Moss grows, and 

 Mosses depend altogether on the atmosphere for their nourish- 

 ment. Although the leaves at a hasty glance do not appear 

 green, owing to the purple colour of the tentacles, yet the 

 upper and lower surfaces of the blade, the pedicels of the 

 central tentacles and the petioles contain chlorophyll, so that, 

 no doubt, the plant obtains and assimilates carbonic acid from 

 the air. Neverthelets, considering the nature of the soil where 

 it grows, the supply of nitrogen would be extremely limited, or 

 quite deficient, unless the plant had the power of obtaining 



this important element from captured insects A 



plant of Drosera, with the edges of its leaves curled inwards, 

 60 as to form a temporary stomach, with the glands of the 

 closely-inflected tentacles pouring forth their acid secretion, 

 %vhich ditaolves animal matter, afterwards to be absorbed, may 

 be said to feed like an animal. But, diffeiently from an animal, 

 it drinks by means of its roots ; and it must drink largely, so as 

 to retain many drops of viscid fluid round the glands, some- 

 times as many as 260, exposed during the whole day to a glaring 

 sun." 



" The glands alone in all ordinary cases are susceptible to 

 excitement. When excited they do not themselves move or 

 change form, but transmit a motor impulse to the bending 

 part of their own and adjoining tentacles, and are thus carried 

 towards the centre of the leaf. Strictly speaking, the glands 

 ought to be called irritable, as the term sensitive generally 

 implies consciousness; but no one supposes that the Sensitive 

 Plan'j is conscious, and as I have found the term convenient I 

 shall use it without scruple." 



We pause over the last sentence, for we cannot comprehend 

 hovf a plant can be irritable without being sensitive, nor how 

 it can be sensitive without being aware of a sensation. There 

 are too many phenomena evidence that they are sensitive — 

 that they are conscious of what will benefit and what will 

 injure them — for us to conclude otherwise. How else can it 

 be explained that they direct their roots to the surface if this 

 be manured ? How else can it be explained that they extend 

 their stem and branches towards the light ? 



" Everybody must have observed that they bend towards the 

 point whence its brightest influence proceeds. M. Bonnet, the 

 French botanist, demonstrated this by some very satisfactory 

 experiments, in which plants growing in a dark cellar all ex- 

 tended themselves towards the same small orifice admitting a 

 few illuminating rays. 



" Almost every flower has a particular degree of light requisite 

 for its full expansion. The blossoms of the Pea and other 

 papilionaceous plants spread out their wings in fine weather to 

 admit the solar rays, and again close them at the approach of 

 night. Plants requiring powerful stimulants do not expand 

 their flowers until noon, whilst some would be destroyed if 

 compelled to open in the meridian sun^of such is the Night- 

 blooming Cereus, the flowers of which speedily droop, even if 

 exposed to the blaze cf light attendant on Indian festivities. 

 ' These and other facts surely demonstrate sensation to exist 



' "Bot. Zeitnug," 1860, p. a4S. 



in plants as acute as that possessed by the superior or more 

 perfect classes of animals, yet they certainly are satisfactory 

 evidence that some plants possess it to a degree nearly as high 

 as that with which the zoophytes, or even the polypus and 

 leech, are gifted. Some of these animals may be cut into 

 pieces, and each section will become a perfect individual; of 

 others, their heads being taken off may be grafted upon other 

 bodies ; and a thu'd class of them may be turned with their in- 

 sides outwards without any apparent inconvenience." — {Science 

 and Practice of Qardeniyig.) 



THE OLD MARKET GARDENS and NURSERIES 

 OF LONDON.— No. 4. 



No, I am not prepared to vouch for the truth of the story 

 that Clerkenwell received its name from the circumstance that 

 an early apostle of teetotalism had there a ducking from the 

 unappreciativemob, which declared that the clerk should have 

 enough of water if he so much commended it, while the lads 

 ran away from the watch with the cry, "The clerk's in the 

 well! the clerk's in the well!" And to some extent the 

 description given of the place by an enthusiastic writer of 

 several centuries ago is alto open to doubt, for he dilates on 

 pleasant fountains, cool valleys, breezy hills, and heautifol 

 gardens, which, if ever they existed, have left no trace, or next 

 to none, in Clerkenwell of the present. Bat his narrative is 

 not a pure romance, and the history of seme of our earliest 

 nursery gardens at least is closely connected with that of 

 Clerkenwell — that is, using the word in a qualified sense, for 

 hardly a nursei^ approachiog in its character to what we now 

 understand by that term can be pointed out until the Stuart 

 period. In the early Englith attempts at methodical garden- 

 ing there was very little " nursing ;" it was thought sufficient 

 to sow the seeds or insert the slips, and Nature was left to do 

 the rest. And yet in some things our ancestors were rather 

 particular, not to say fussy, as appears from a rare pamphlet 

 written by a citizen in the form of a dialogue, the object being 

 the commendation of the beauties of Moorfields. He chro- 

 nicles the exact number of trees within the enclosure, amount- 

 ing to two hundred, fourscore, and eleven. Outside, he says, 

 there were a few more, which he roughly estimates at about 

 thirty or forty. It would not have been a very serious piece 

 of business for one wealthy citizen to have planted all these 

 trees, but it teems they were the gift of various persons, and 

 so they were distinguished as they grew by the names of the 

 donors, or by some event in their history, so that most of 

 these trees (Elms I suspect) had their proper names. One of 

 them, writes our author, is called " Stubbs his tree," since it 

 was planted by Christopher Stubbs, a principal porter of 

 Blackwell Hall. William Shakespeare ! there is much in a 

 name, even in the case of a tree. 



Having alluded to the name of the district, once undoubtedly 

 rural, but now far too near the centres of London activity to 

 present any attractions except to the man of business or the 

 antiquarian, I might add that the cleiks' well really had its 

 designation from an annual custom of the clerks, who would 

 meet close by this well to enact miracle plays. The well or 

 spring, with another close to it, lay in a little valley, and as 

 the ground rose gradually to the south and west spectators 

 could conveniently group themselves on the slopes, these same 

 slopes being subsequently found to be admirably suited for 

 gardens. Since there was scarcely any notion amongst early 

 gardeners of such a thing as artificial drainage, they frequently 

 made choice of hills, for, especially near London, they had 

 large experience of the disadvantages arising from marshy or 

 swampy ground. As London increased during the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries the well-to-do citizens were led to go 

 farther afield, and as they could not have garden plots to their 

 taste in the city they went out to Clerkenwell, or to the ad- 

 jacent manor of Finsbury, and took land there. And those 

 who are carious in these matters may still inspect an old 

 document which contains a minute specification of the way in 

 which the great garden and oichards of the manor of Halli- 

 well (alias Finsbury) was subdivided into allotments during 

 the reign of Queen Elizabeth. There is a long list of various 

 citizens, whose trades or occupations are duly specified — a 

 goodly number of them are merchant tailors ; but in the ac- 

 count of one plot of land, called Benhil Field, abutting south 

 on a highway known as Chiswell Street, and north on the 

 highway from Wenlock Barn to the well of St. Agnes le Clere, 

 the whole amounting to '23 acres, we discover, with several 

 othera, one William Gill, gardener, the only person seemingly, 



