SaSufou/ pfant/". 12 1 



very leaves, remarks, as tliouf^h he had been an eye-witness, that 

 tliey walk, and march away without further ado if anyone attempts 

 to touch them, liauhin, after describing these wonderful leaves 

 as being very like Mulberry-leaves, but with two short and 

 pointed feet on each side, remarks upon the great prodigy of the 

 leaf of a tree being changed into an animal, obtaining sense, and 

 being capable of progressive motion. 



Kircher records that in his time a tree was said to exist in Chili, 

 the leaves of which produced worms ; upon arriving at maturity, 

 these worms crawled to the edge of the leaf, and thence fell to the 

 earth, where after a time they became changed into serpents, which 

 over-ran the whole land. Kircher endeavours to explain this 

 story of the serpent-bearing tree by giving, as a reason for the 

 phenomenon, that the tree attached to itself, through its roots, 

 moisture pregnant with the seed of serpents. Through the action 

 of the sun's rays, and the moisture of the tree, this serpent-spawn 

 degenerates into worms, which by contacfl with the earth become 

 converted into living serpents. 



The same authority states that in the Molucca islands, but 

 more particularly in Ternate, not far from the castle of the same 

 name, there grew a plant which he describes as having small 

 leaves. To this plant the natives gave the name of Catopa, because 

 when its leaves fall ofT they at once become changed into butterflies. 

 Docftor Darwin, in his botanical poem called ' The Loves of 

 the Plants,' thus apostrophises an extraordinary animal-bearing 

 plant : — 



" Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air, 



Shines, gentle Barometz ! thy golden hair ; 



Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends. 



And round and round her flexile neck she bends ; 



Crops the gray coral-moss and hoary Thyme, 



Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime. 



Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, 



Or seems to bleat, a vegetable Lamb." 



In the curious frontispiece to Parkinson's ' Paradisus,' which 

 will be found reproduced at the commencement of this work, it will 

 be noticed that the Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb, is represented 

 as one of the plants growing in Eden. In Zahn's Specula Physico- 

 Alathcmatico-Historica (1696) is given a figure of this plant, accom- 

 panied by a description, of which the following is a translation: — 



♦* Very wonderful is the Tartarian shrub or plant which the 

 natives call Boromez, i.e., Lamb. It grows like a lamb to about the 

 height of three feet. It resembles a lamb in feet, in hoofs, in ears, 

 and in the whole head, save the horns. For horns, it possesses 

 tufts of hair, resembling a horn in appearance. It is covered with 

 the thinnest bark, which is taken off and used by the inhabitants 

 for the protection of their heads. They say that the inner pulp 

 resembles lobster-flesh, and that blood flows from it when it is 

 wounded. Its root projects and rises to the umbilicus. What 



