ON SOME RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 35 
would seem to be endowed with feeling as well. What the nature 
of their feeling is, we cannot possibly say; but in its visible 
effects it exactly resembles an animal attribute. It is probably 
not sensation, like the feeling of an animal, but depends on some 
mechanical action. 
But there are many other plants, or parts of plants, that move 
quite spontaneously. The stamens of all kinds of Saxifrages move. 
Ifyou examine a newly-expanded flower, you will see that there are 
ten stamens lying back upon or between the petals of the flower, 
and that each stamen rises up in order and standing erect over the 
short pistil, sheds its pollen, and then, having delivered its fire 
as it were, falls back into the rear rank. You perhaps cannot see 
it moving any more than you can see the hour hand of a watch 
moving; but if you examine the flower at intervals, you will soon 
see that the stamens fave moved. There is a plant called Love- 
in-a-Mist, or Devil-in-a-Bush, or Fennel Flower—its Latin name 
is Vigella—in which it is not the stamens that thus move, but the 
long pistils, each one bending down in order and touching a 
stamen, that it may be impregnated. 
Then again the opening and closing of flowers is an instance of 
motion in plants. Inthe Crocus you may actually see the move- 
ment of the petals—the flower being so extremely sensitive to 
light. I have several times gathered a closed Crocus flower at 
night and brought it close to a bright light, and been much 
pleased to see the petals unfolding, and in a very short time fully 
expanded. 
A very curious example of motion is seen in all climbing plants. 
The last two or three joints of the stem, indeed all that is above 
any attachment, is constantly revolving, in order that it may find 
and seize hold of whatever may be presented to it. Here, again, 
the motion may be too slow to be seen by the eye; but if a piece 
of glass be suspended horizontally over the top shoot of such 
a plant and the position of the tip of the shoot marked with 
a dot of ink at intervals of say an hour, the motion will become 
very apparent, and many plants are thus found to revolve several 
times during a day. 
