798 



WE A 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



W E A 



and strongly deflexed throat ; stigmas cloven half way clown, 

 divaricated. The variety is preferred, on account of the 

 splendid scarlet colour of its flowers. Native of the Cape. 



8. Watsonia Meriana ; Red Watsonia. Throat of the 

 corolla curved, rather longer than the tube, and longer than 

 the obtuse limb; tube longer than the spathe ; leaves sword- 

 shaped, erect, with a prominent midrib. This large and 

 handsome species is nearly allied to the last, but is distin- 

 guished by the blunt segments of its corolla. The real colour 

 of the flowers is a peculiar salmon red, rather than scarlet ; 

 but it varies both in colour and size. It flowers with other 

 Cape bulbs in May and June, increasing plentifully by 

 offsets. Native of the Cape. 



9. Watsonia Humilis ; Crimson Watsonia. Throat of the 

 corolla curved, rather longer than the acute limb; tube the 

 length of the spathe ; leaves sword-shaped, erect, with a pro- 

 minent midrib. This plant is seldom above a foot high. The 

 flowers are of a crimson or rose-coloured hue, and vary in 

 size. Native of the Cape. 



10. Watsonia Rosea-Alba; Long-tubed Watsonia. Tube 

 about twice the length of the throat, with which it makes 

 nearly a right angle ; leaves sword-shaped, with a midrib. 

 The tube is one and a half or two inches long, erect ; throat 

 suddenly deflexed, cylindrical, rather slender, an inch long; 

 segments of the border lanceolate, acute, the length of the 

 throat; anthene but just projecting out of the mouth of the 

 flower, violet-coloured ; stigmas in linear segments. The 

 corolla is either cream-coloured, with rose-coloured tints 

 about the mouth arid throat, or flesh-coloured, blotched 

 with scarlet, or all over crimson. Native of the Cape. 



11. Watsonia Aletroides ; Aletris-fiower.cd Watsonia. 

 Throat deflexed, four times as long as the segments of the 

 limb. The loaves are sword-shaped, narrow, with a central 

 rib not very strongly marked, and several small lateral ones. 

 This elegant species bears numerous drooping flowers, of a 

 rich crimson, sometimes speckled with a darker tint, or with 

 white, and remarkable for their small slightly spreading 

 border, so short in proportion to the long tubular deflexed 

 throat, that they resemble the flowers of an Alctris or Aloe. 

 Native of the Cape. 



12. Watsonia Strictiflora ; Straight-flowered Watsonia. 

 Tube thread-shaped, twice the length of the spathe; throat 

 erect, very short, slightly dilated ; segments of the border 

 elliptical, obtuse, half the length of the tube ; leaves sword- 

 shaped, with a prominent midrib. The stern is about twelve 

 or eighteen inches high, with several shortish taper-pointed 

 leaves at the bottom, and bears about two handsome crimson 

 flowers. Native of the Cape. 



Way Bread. See Plantago. 



Wayfaring Tree. See Viburnum. 



Way Thistle. See Serratula Arvensia. 



Weather. The great but regular alterations which a little 

 change of weather makes in many parts and sorts of inanimate 

 matter, is fully and strikingly shewn by barometers, thermo- 

 meters, hygrometers, and other such instruments ; and it is 

 probably owing to our inattention, and partly to other causes 

 and circumstances, that mankind, like the animals, do not feel 

 these alterations of the atmosphere in the tubes, chords, and 

 fibres, of our own bodies. The state of the atmosphere, with 

 respect to heat and cold, drought and moisture, fog, fair or 

 foul, wind, rain, hail, frost, snow, and other changes, is a 

 kind of knowledge that will be found of vast importance to 

 the farmer; for it is by means of the atmosphere that plants 

 are in some measure nourished, and that animals properly 

 perform their vital functions. In order to form a proper and 

 consistent theory or doctrine of the weather, it would be 



necessary to have accounts and registers of it regularly and 

 carefully kept, in divers parts of the globe, for a long serifs 

 of years. Hitherto, however, such accounts have only been 

 very partial, and the general conclusions drawn from them 

 arc, that barometers rise and fall together, even at very 

 distant places, and a consequent conformity and similarity 

 of weather; and that this happens more uniformly, as in in-lit, 

 bo expected, where the places are nearest together. The 

 variations of these instruments are also found to be the 

 greater as the places are nearer to the pole : thus the quick- 

 silver in those at London has a greater range by two or three 

 lines than at Paris, and at Paris than at Zurich ; and that 

 at some places near the e-quator, there is scarcely any 

 variation at all: that the rain in Switzerland and Italy is 

 much greater in quantity, taking it for the whole year, than 

 in the county of Essex, though the rains are yet more frequent, 

 or there are more rainy days, in that county than in either of 

 the aforesaid countries. That cold contributes greatly to rain, 

 and that apparently by condensing the suspended vapours, and 

 causing them to descend ; thus very cold months or seasons 

 are generally followed by great rains, and cold summers are 

 generally very wet. Again, that high ridges of country, or 

 mountains, as the Alps and others, and the snows with 

 which they are covered, not only affect the neighbouring 

 places, but even distant countries, which often partake 

 of their effects, and the weather is mostly rainy in their 

 vicinity, both in our own and other countries. The prog- 

 nostics of the weather, that are formed from other circum- 

 stances, are, that a thick dark sky lasting for some time, 

 without either sun or rain, always becomes first fair and then 

 foul; that is, it changes to a fair clear sky before it turns to 

 rain. The reason appears to be, that the atmosphere is 

 replete with vapours, which, though sufficient to reflect and 

 intercept the sun's rays from us, yet want density to descend ; 

 and while they continue in the same state, so will the wea- 

 ther, which is on that account commonly attended with 

 moderate warmth, and with little or no wind to disturb the 

 vapours, which have a heavy atmosphere to sustain them, tin: 

 barometer beinggenerally high : but when the cold approaches, 

 and by condensing the vapours, drives them into clouds, or 

 drops, the way is made for the sun-beams to appear, until 

 the vapour by further condensation forms into rain, and falls 

 in drops. Hence a change in the warmth of the weather is 

 often followed by a change in the wind. Thus, the north- 

 erly and southerly winds, though generally supposed to be 

 the causes of cold and warm weather, are in reality the effects 

 produced by the warmth or coldness of the atmosphere. And 

 it is common to observe a warm southerly wind, suddenly 

 changed to the north, by the fall of snow or hail ; or to find the 

 wind in a cold frosty morning north, when the sun has well 

 warmed the air, wheel towards the south, and again turn 

 northerly or easterly in the cold of the evening. The fol- 

 lowing useful deductions with regard to the weather, are ex- 

 tracted from various sources; and will be found of service to 

 agriculturists. When the evening is red and the morning 

 gray, a fine day may be expected. When there are small 

 round clouds of a dapple gray colour, with a north wind, it 

 may be determined that the weather will continue fine for two 

 or three days ; but large clouds appearing lik rocks, indicate 

 great showers. When small clouds increase, it is a sign of 

 much rain; but the lessening of large clouds foretells fine 

 weather. In summer or harvest, when the wind has been 

 south two or three days, and it grows very hot, and clouds 

 rise with great white tops like towers, as if one were on the 

 top of another, being joined together with black on the lower 

 side, it is a sign that there will be thunder and rain suddenly. 



