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seed on a light touch of the hand, nay, the Carda- 

 mine Impaticns does so, even by the approach of the 

 hand. Other seeds by their agreeable taste or sin^ll, 

 invite birds to feed upon them, who drop them again, 

 fertilized by passing through their body. So Mistle- 

 toe is usually sown. 



The berries of Mistletoe have within their viscid 

 pulp, a kernel covered with a thin, whitish skin. One 

 placed these berries within tiae bark of oak, ash, 

 beech, poar ; and apple-trees, by making several cuts 

 iu the sides of the trees, but the whole berries would 

 not stay in any of them. And when he broke them, 

 the seed always slipt out to the edge of the cut, and 

 there stuck to the bark by its viscous covering. He 

 stuck one seed to the bark without any cutting at 

 all, which succeeded best, and yielded two plants. 

 The viscous matter drying away, drew the seeds close 

 to the bark, and on these with two more on an apple 

 tree, and one on a pear tree, there began in spring 

 to shoot out at the end of the seed next the eye of 

 th"e berry, a small deep green shoot, like a little clasp- 

 er of a vine. At tirst it rose upward, then turning 

 again, swelled out somewhat bigger round the end ; 

 yet leaving the tip quite Hat, forming as it were a foot 

 to sfand upon. This foot in J,:ne came to the bark, 

 and fixed itself thereon. Bei >g thus fastened at both 

 ends, it formed a little arch, wuose diameter was as 

 long as the seed. THUS it mndi ied till March fol- 

 lowing. The. i the oth.-r en-J let go its U Id, and 

 raising itself upward bc-caaie th' head of the plant, 

 while t ,e end which sprung on. first, became the ro<>t. 

 It is not uncommon, for the seeds of ev.i-^reens to 

 be two years before they spring out of the ground. 

 But this was surprising, the change of the ends, tirst 

 one shooting out, and then the other. Yet we iind 

 nature is uniform. And even in this strange plant 

 acts as in other vegetables, first carrying the sap to 

 form the root, then turning the course of it back 

 again, to send out the upper part of the plant, 

 strangest circumstance is, that the rooting end 



