the plant may be truly a native of our mountains, although it does not 

 establish it as such. It grew, she says, in one spot only, shaded by 

 a rock, among shivers of clay-slate, in a cluster of several plants, very 

 near together. Struck with the beauty of the flower, but not aware 

 that it was anything new to our Flora, she collected all that she saw. 

 The next year she again visited the spot, found a few more specimens, 

 and again gathered them all. In the two years she supposes she col- 

 lected from fifteen to twenty specimens. In several subsequent visits 

 she has been unable to find a single one, and she considers herself as 

 having completely eradicated her discovery before the place of it was 

 buried, as it has since been, by further slipplngs of the shivery rock. 

 She conducted me to the spot, which is such as to preclude alto- 

 gether any suspicion that the plant had escaped from a garden. Can 

 it be that it had been purposely sown ? 



W. BORRER. 



Henfield, Nov. 20, 1844. 



On the Falling of the Leaf. By William Wilson, Esq. 



The descent of an apple on the head of a philosopher led to the 

 discoveiy of the laws of gravitation ; but hitherto no satisfactory ex- 

 planation has been given of the cause of its fall at the period of matu- 

 rity,nor of the spontaneous dehiscence of leaves, so light and buoyant, 

 that even when unmoored from the tree to which they have minis- 

 tered nourishment, they descend with reluctance to mother earth. So 

 soft and noiseless is their fall, that it needs a contemplative mind to 

 take due notice of the event. Though every leaf has its appointed time 

 of duration, great diversity prevails in reference to the period in dif- 

 ferent species and tribes. Some, like the poplar and the ash, are 

 tardy in making their appearance, and vanish speedily, while the 

 approach of winter is as yet scarcely perceptible : those of the oak 

 yield only to its more significant frowns: yet all seem to be subject to 

 some general law, and it is my present purpose to inquire what is the 

 rationale of this spontaneous decadence. 



A valued friend has endeavoured to throw some light on the sub- 

 ject by remarking, that Nature does nothing by leaps; and therefore it 

 is to be expected that those of our British trees which have evergreen 

 congeners elsewhere, should exhibit, by their long retention of leaves, 

 their participation in the same properties. This view, perhaps, derives 

 some weight from the consideration of such trees as keep the leaves 



