REMARKS ON GROWING PLANTS IN GLASS CASES. 215 



are round, of a pale blue colour, and spreading near the ground ; 

 the stalk about a foot long, and the flowers, which are bell-shaped, 

 and of a deep scarlet, hanging down in clusters." 



A lover of flowers will sympathize with this author in the regret he 

 describes himself to have felt, in the course of preparation for building 

 a new church: "By the grubbing up, and removing these stones, 

 which may have lain there since the deluge, many flowers, much 

 beautiful shrubbery, and a great quantity of Aloes were destroyed. 

 I defended them as long as I could, but was obliged to submit to the 

 necessity of using the stones. The ground was strewed with flowers 

 and bulbs, shattered Aloe-leaves and beautiful plants, but I was 

 assured for my comfort, that, after a short rest, the earth would 

 bring forth abundantly, and the Aloes and Fahlblar again adorn the 

 spot." 



ARTICLE IV. 



REMARKS ON GROWING PLANTS IN GLASS CASES, 



BY CALEDONIOUS. 



{Continued from page 157.) 



The great influence which light thus exerts on the colour and pro- 

 perties of plants must be regarded as altogether local in its operation, 

 affecting only those parts to which it has free access ; and, accord- 

 ingly, the green colour, and other properties to which light gives 

 rise, may be again obliterated by the simple exclusion of that powerful 

 agent. " Thus, if a portion of a growing fruit," says M. Senebier, 

 " be covered with a piece of tin foil, the uncovered portion may 

 become perfectly red, whilst the covered part exhibits only a pale or 

 yellowish hue ; or grapes, which would have acquired a violet colour 

 under a full exposure to light, take on a greyish hue if enclosed in 

 black paper. Those leaves, too, which may only partially cover 

 growing fruit, and thereby intercept the sun's rays, delineate, as it 

 were, on the fruit beneath, the limits they set to its action. — {Mem. 

 Phys. Chimiques, tom.iii. p. 146.) In this manner apples or other 

 fruits may be marked with the impressions of leaves artificially glued 

 on them ; and fruits so marked, it is said, are often exposed for sale 

 in the bazaars of Persia. In North America the operation of light, 



