REMARKS ON THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 255 



an exuberance of white and richly aromatic flowers ; it attracts the 

 notice of all who approach it. Pimenta trees grow spontaneously 

 and in great abundance, in many parts of Jamaica ; but they cannot 

 be propagated, without great difficulty. The usual mode of making 

 a Pimenta walk, or plantation, is to appropriate for this purpose, a 

 piece of woody ground in the neighbourhood of an already existing 

 walk, or in a part of the country, where the scattered trees are found 

 in a native state. The other trees are cut down, and, in a year or 

 two, young Pimenta plants are found to spring up in all parts, sup- 

 posed to have been produced from berries dropped there by birds, 

 which eagerly devours them. About the month of September, and 

 not long after the blossoms have fallen, the berries are in a fit state 

 to be gathered. At this time, though not quite ripe, they are full 

 grown, and about the size of pepper-corns. They are gathered by 

 the hand ; and one labourer on a tree will strip them off so quickly, 

 as to employ three below to gather them up ; and an industrious 

 picker will fill a bag of seventy pounds weight in a day. The berries 

 are then spread on a terrace, in the sun to be dried ; but. this is an 

 operation which requires great care, from the necessity of keeping 

 them entirely free from moisture. By the drying they lose their 

 green colour, and become of a reddish brown ; the process is known 

 to be completed by their change of colour, and by the rotting of the 

 seeds within the berries. They are then packed into bags or hogs- 

 heads for the market. When the berries are quite ripe, they are of a 

 dark purple colour, and filled with a sweet pulp. Pimenta is thought 

 to resemble nutmegs and cloves, whence it has obtained the name of 

 all-spice. It is also employed in medicine, as an agreeable aromatic, 

 and forms the basis of distilled water, a spirit, and essential oil. The 

 leaves of the Pimenta tree yield, in distillation, an odoriferous oil, 

 which is not unfrequently used in medicine preparations instead of 

 the oil of cloves. 



ARTICLE VII. 



REMARKS ON THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 



" BV LUCY. 



The movement of the leaves of the Mimosa pudica have their origin 

 in certain enlargements, situated at the articulation of the leaflets with 

 the petiole, and of the petiole with the stem. Those only which are 



