(iS) 
CHAPTER I. 
PHOSPHORESCENCE IN PHANEROGAMIC PLANTS. 
THE phenomenon of phosphorescence has, up to 
the present time, been very little observed in the 
vegetable world. 
I have collected, not without much difficulty, 
all the observations upon this subject which ap- 
pear to me worthy of confidence. Luminous 
plants are probably numerous, though few have 
been observed hitherto, and the observations we 
possess are somewhat scanty and uncertain. 
The first discovery of a light-emitting vege- 
table is attributed to the daughter of Linnzeus— 
a young damsel who was fond of setting fire on a 
dark summer evening, to the inflammable atmo- 
sphere which envelopes the essential-oil glands of 
certain Hraxinelle, an experiment with which the 
learned Frangois Arago was quite as delighted as 
the daughter of Linnzeus. 
A curious fact strikes us here: the first obser- 
vation of vegetable phosphorescence was made 
