2 94 MIMOSA BLOOMS. 



dry-hot climates in the Old World, while the Mimosa 

 forms are more generally met with in the New. The 

 latter are also more strictly confined to the torrid zone, 

 whereas certain varieties of the Acacias flourish in the 

 warmer temperate zones and some forms will succeed 

 tolerably well even in much colder climates. The 

 sweet scent of the Mimosa blossoms, in the season of 

 flowers, frequently fills the air with such an overpowering 

 fragrance as to become disagreeable after some time. 

 Even now, as we write of it, the powerful but some- 

 what sickly aroma of the mimosa-bloom, rises up in 

 imagination to our nostrils, exactly as if we were still 

 surrounded by the great wilderness of flower-covered 

 shrubs, glowing in the resplendent brilliancy of a 

 vertical sun. 



The Mimosae, so called from their mimicry of cer- 

 tain movements of animals, though exhibiting a great 

 wealth and variety of species, amounting according to 

 Bailou to 28 genera and noo species, are however of 

 much less economic importance than the Acaciae; but 

 they supply very valuable tanning barks, that of the 

 Mimosa Decurrens, a well-known Australian species, 

 known there as the Black Wattle, being according to 

 Professor Brandt, half as strong again as the best 

 English oak bark. The Mimosae are also remarkable 

 for the exceeding beauty and delicacy of their bipin- 

 nate foliage, but still more, as the Encyclopaedia Bri- 

 tannica points out, because of the wonderful " sleep 

 movements" which are exhibited by some of them. 



THE SLEEP OF PLANTS is a natural phenomenon 

 first discovered nearly a century ago, by the daughter 

 of the celebrated Swedish botanist Linnaeus, and though 

 few people even now seem to be aware of the fact, 



