Plants. 18* 



The third class, or annuals, from the 

 seeds of which, if sown in the spring^ 

 stalks spring up which produce flowers 

 and seeds the same season ; after the 

 perfecting of which the stalks decay and 

 die entirely away. Biennials can only 

 be viewed as a diversity of these, that 

 have not sufficient length of season to 

 bring them to perfection in one year. 



Whether distinctions similar to these 

 take place among those minute tribes of 

 plants which we call microscopical, it 

 exceeds our power at present to deter- 

 mine. From the short period of their 

 existence, we have been generally in- 

 clined to think that they are all similar 

 in quality to annuals ; that is to say, that 

 they flower but once, and die down im- 

 mediately after they have once perfected 

 their seeds* Yet, who dares pretend to 

 say, that the plant of mould ^ which ex- 

 ists perhaps but one of our hours, may 

 not produce in that period many thou- 

 .sands of successions of ripe seeds, each 

 of which has taken its due season to ri- 

 pen like those of the baobob, which 

 flourishes on our globe for hundreds of 

 ages! for the same infinite power which 



