1 82 Notes and Gleanings. 



have been frequently entertained by making observations on the sensitive plant 

 {Mimosa sensitii^a). It has been during the summer growing in the stove. It 

 is well known, that, if we touch it, there is a sensitive power of feeling made 

 manifest (or, at all events, something very like feeling) ; so that it droops and 

 shrinks at the slightest touch. I had occasion to remove a plant into a cool 

 greenhouse : it then, very strange to say, lost all its feeling, and refused to shrink 

 when touched ; but as soon as ever it went into the stove again its sensitive ac- 

 tions returned to it. We might in this behavior liken it to an animal that loses 

 volition when benumbed by cold. Then, again, there is the Venus's Fly- 

 Trap {DioncBa miiscipiild), which has jointed leaves, furnished on the edges with 

 a row of strong prickles. Flies, or any other insects, attracted by the honey se- 

 creted in glands on their surface, venture to alight upon them. No sooner do 

 they touch the leaves than they spring up, locking the two rows of prickles to- 

 gether, and squeezing the insect to death. The sensitive sorrel {Oxalis or Bio- 

 phytum sensithnun), and some species of the berberry, are of an irritable dispo- 

 sition. I have noticed also a similar thing in some of the greenhouse acacias 

 and the hardy locusts and gleditschias : these are not exactly sensitive, but, of an 

 evening, the leaves are always closed up in the same manner as those of the 

 sensitive plants are when touched. Another remarkable instance is the tremu- 

 lous fern {Pteris tremula), which always seems to move as if worked by some 

 invisible agency ; but whether it is the air, or real volition, that ca'ises the fronds 

 to move always, I am at present unable to say. Again : there is the pretty trem- 

 bling grass of our meadows {Aira canescens), which always appears on the move ; 

 but whether it is possessed with the power of trembling, or it is only imagination, 

 I will leave philosophers to decide.* Those who take interest in such subjects 

 as these may find e.xamples in the Hedysanim gyrans, also in the common clo- 

 ver, notably in the flowers of the berberis, when the bases of the filaments are 

 touched by the point of a pin, and in the beautiful aspen-tree [Poptiliis tre»iula), 

 the leaves of which are always on the move. It is one of the charming fancies 

 of the poet Moore, that 



" 'I'he wind, like a lover, 

 Wooed the young aspen-trees till they trembled all over." 



JoJin Boivlbv, in Gardener'' s Magazine. 



Huyshe's Victoria Pear. — This is one of the Rev. Mr. Huyshe's first 

 seedlings, from a cross between Marie Louise and Gansel's Bergamot. It is a 

 pear that has received a very high character ; higher than it really deserves. I 

 have never tasted a fruit of it to equal a good Marie Louise or Gansel's Berga- 

 mot. It is generally (near London, at least) pasty, and frequently gritty. The 

 fruit is of medium size, somewhat oval in form, flattened at the two ends ; skin 

 pale yellow, covered with numerous spots and patches of russet ; stalk short, 

 thick ; in some cases it is inserted quite in the centre of the fruit, in others ob- 

 liquely, as in the Beurre d'Aremberg ; moderate bearer, succeeding best on the 

 quince. Season, November and December. 



* Airac/inescens, ihe " gray h.iir-grass," has a peculiarly-constructed awn, furnished with a delicate 

 process, which is highly hygrometrical, and moves with the le.-ist communication of moisture to it. — Ed. G M. 



