YOUNGER YEARS OF A PLANT. 191 



ing juice. Brazil, also, has a plant the rainy one, it is 

 called that is remarkable for a constant flow of water 

 from the points of its leaves, which falls upon the parched 

 ground like a gentle shower of rain-drops. Quite a number 

 of plants, it is well known, have regular pitchers, in 

 which they accumulate moisture some from within, and 

 others by holding them open in rain or damp weather 

 and closing a curiously-fashioned lid, when they are filled. 

 Such are the side-saddle flower of our own country, with 

 leaves like pitchers, covered with a top, and half full of 

 water ; the monkey-cup of South America, to which it 

 was once believed the monkeys resorted to quench their 

 thirst, and the distilling nepenthes, which hold up their 

 capacious and elegantly-formed pitchers, full of cool, color- 

 less water, in the burning sands of the desert. A few 

 trees change the nature of the fluid, and one, the cow-tree, 

 is even good enough to satisfy hunger as well as thirst. 

 It yields a rich, bland and oily juice, closely resembling 

 milk, and that in sufficient abundance to refresh and to 

 satisfy the hunger of several persons. But if the leaves 

 of plants are so industriously and incessantly at work, it 

 must not be forgotten, that some go regularly to rest, 

 and sleep so profoundly that in a clover-field not a leaf 

 opens until after sunrise, and others in South America are 

 universally known as the "sleepers." Most mimosas fold 

 up their delicate, feathery leaves, as night approaches, and 

 when the sun rises once more, the little sleepy ones un- 

 fold again, slowly, and, as it were, reluctant, like some 

 of us, to begin their work anew. It has even been ob- 

 served, that these so-called sensitive plants, when wounded 



