M I M 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



M IM 



129 



17. Mimosa Mellifera; Honied Mimosa. Thorny: leaves 

 bigeminate, blunt; prickles recurved. Native of Egypt. 



****Leaves conjugate, and at the same time pinnate. 



18. Mimosa Latifolia; Broad-leaved Mimosa. Unarmed: 

 leaves conjugate; pinnas terminating, opposite, lateral ones 

 alternate. Flowers purple. Native of South America. 



19. Mimosa Furpurea; Purple Mimosa, or Soldier Wood. 

 Unarmed: leaves conjugate, pinnate; inmost pinnas smaller. 

 Flowers purple. Native of South America. 



20. Mimosa Reticulata; Netted Mimosa. Spines stipular; 

 leaves conjugate; leaflets six-paired; petioles terminated by 

 a gland and a prickle. This is a tree with rigid branches, 

 that are flexuose from bud to bud. Native of the Cape. 



21. Mimosa Viva; Lively Sensitive Mimosa. Unarmed: 

 leaves conjugate, pinnate; the partial ones four-paired, 

 roundish; stem herbaceous. Stalks trailing, herbaceous, 

 putting out roots at every joint, and spreading to a consider- 

 able distance. This species is so very sensitive, as to con- 

 tract its leaves on every slight touch, or change of the atmo- 

 sphere; even a puff of breath from the mouth will make an 

 impression on it. Native of the pastures and savannas of 

 Jamaica. 



22. Mimosa Circinalis; Spiral Mimosa. Prickly: leaves 

 conjugate, pinnate; pinnas equal; stipules spinose. The 

 seeds, which are flat, and one half of a beautiful red colour, 

 the other half of a deep black, grow in long twisted pods ; 

 hanging by a small thread for some time out of the pod : 

 when ripe, they make a very agreeable appearance. 

 Native of the Bahama Islands. 



23. Mimosa Cineraria; Ash-coloured Mimosa. Prickly: 

 leaves conjugate, pinnate; pinnas equal; prickles curved 

 inwards. This prickly shrub is common in most of the sugar 

 colonies, especially in Antigua; where the leaves are fre- 

 quently used, mixed with corn, for their riding horses, and 

 is thought to free them from botts and worms. Linneus says 

 it is a native of the East Indies. 



24. Mimosa Casta ; Chaste Sensitive Mimosa. Prickly: 

 leaves conjugate, pinnate ; partial ones three-paired, almost 

 equal. Native of the East Indies. 



25. Mimosa Sensitiva ; Sensitive Plant. Prickly : leaves 

 conjugate, pinnate; partial ones two-paired; the inmost very 

 small. Stalk woody, slender, seven or eight feet high, armed 

 with sharp recurved thorns. The leaves move but slowly, 

 when touched ; but the footstalks fall, when they are pressed 

 pretty hard. Native of Brazil. 



26. Mimosa Pudica; Humble Plant. Prickly: leaves sub- 

 digitate, pinnate ; stem hispid. Roots composed of many 

 hairy fibres, which mat close together ; from which come out 

 several woody stalks, which decline towards the ground, un- 

 less they are supported ; they are armed with short recurved 

 spines, and have winged or pinnate leaves, composed of four 

 or five pinnas, spreading upwards like the fingers of a hand; 

 flowers collected in small globular heads, of a yellow colour. 

 -Native of Brazil. It is the most common of any species 

 in the islands of the West Indies, and in the English gar- 

 dens. The seeds are sold in the seed shops by the name of 

 Humble Plant. It would be to little purpose to trouble the 

 reader with the several idle stories related of these plants by 

 travellers ; nor to insert what has been said by others, who 

 have attempted to account for the motion of the leaves of 

 these plants on their being touched. "Naturalists," says 

 Dr. Darwin, " have not explained the immediate cause of 

 the collapsing of the Sensitive Plant; the leaves meet and 

 close in the night, during the sleep of the plant, which, in 

 Sweden, according to Linneus, is from six in the evening to 

 three in the morning, during the months of June and July ; 



or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the same 

 manner as when they are affected by external violence; fold- 

 ing their upper surfaces together, and in part over each other 

 like scales or tiles, so as to expose as little of the upper sur- 

 face as may be to the air; but do not indeed collapse quite so 

 far, for when touched in the night during their sleep, they 

 fall still farther, especially when touched on the footstalks, 

 between the stems and the leaflets, which seem to be their 

 most sensitive or irritable part. Now as their situation after 

 being exposed to external violence resembles their sleep, but 

 with a greater degree of collapse, may it not be owing to a 

 numbness or paralysis consequent to too violent irritation, 

 like the faintiugs of animals from pain or fatigue? A Sen- 

 sitive Plant being kept in a dark room till some hours after 

 day-break, its leaves and leaf-stalks were collapsed as in its 

 most profound sleep; and on exposing it to the light, above 

 twenty minutes passed before the plant was thoroughly awake, 

 and had quite expanded itself. During the night, the upper 

 or smoother surfaces of the leaves are appressed ; this would 

 seem to shew that the office of this surface of the leaf was 

 to expose the fluids of the plant to the light as well as to 

 the air." The same elegant author thus poetically charac- 

 terizes this singular plant: 



Weak with nice sense the chaste Mimosa stands, 

 From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands ; 

 Oft as light clouds o'erpass the summer glade, 

 Alarm 'd, she trembles at the moving shade ; 

 And feels, alive through all her tender form, 

 The whisp'ring murmurs of the gath'ring storm ; 

 Shuts her sweet eyelids to approaching night ; 

 And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light." 



The Sensitive and Humble Plants are all of them propagated 

 by seeds, which should be sown early in the spring, upon a 

 good hot-bed. If the seeds be good, the plants will appear 

 in a fortnight or three weeks, when they will require to be 

 treated with care, for they must not have much wet till they 

 have acquired strength; nor should they be drawn too weak, 

 so that fresh air should be admitted to them at all times when 

 the air is temperate. In about a fortnight or three weeks 

 after the plants come up, they will be fit to transplant, espe- 

 cially if the bed in which they were sown continues in a pro- 

 per degree of heat; then there should be a fresh hpt-bed 

 prepared to receive them, which should be made a week before 

 the plants are removed into it, that the violent heat may be 

 abated before the earth be laid upon the dung, and the earth 

 should have time to warm before the plants are planted into 

 it. Then the plants must be carefully raised up from the 

 bed to preserve the roots entire, and immediately planted in 

 the new bed, at about three or four inches' distance, pressing 

 the earth gently to their roots; then they should be gently 

 sprinkled over with water, to settle the earth to their roots; 

 after this they must be shaded from the sun till they have 

 taken new root, and the glasses of the hot'bed should be 

 covered every night to keep up the heat of the bed. When 

 the plants are established in their new bed, they must have 

 frequent but gentle waterings ; and every day they must have 

 free air admitted to them, in proportion to the warmth of the 

 season, to prevent thejr being drawn up weak; but they must 

 be constantly kept in a moderate degree of heat, otherwise 

 they will not thrive. In about a month after, the plants will 

 be strong enough to remove again, when they should be care- 

 fully taken up, preserving as much earth to their roots as 

 possible, and each planted in a separate small pot, filled 

 with good kitchen-garden earth, and plunged into a hot-bed 

 of tan, carefully shading them from the sun till they have 

 taken new root; then they must be treated in the same man- 



