200 MOVING PLANT. 



sediment which they deposit. It is a light substance, 

 somewhat of the consistence of raw starch, but of 

 a deep blue colour. In this prepared state, indigo 

 is poisonous ; but the plant itself is harmless. All 

 the different species of Indigo'fera afford it ; which 

 is the case indeed with several other leguminous 

 plants. The leaves of the Lo'tus cornicula'tus, as 

 they dry, become blue. 



A foreign species of Saintfoin, called the Moving 

 Plant, Hedys'arum gy'rans, which belongs to a 

 genus of the class Diadelphia, is very remark- 

 able. It grows in the East Indies, on the banks 

 of the river Ganges, near Bengal, and was first 

 made known in England in the year 1772, when 

 it was produced from seeds. It is an armual 

 plant, and reaches to the height of three or four 

 feet : the leaves are of a bright green colour, and 

 the flowers generally of a pale red. Its leares 

 possess the singular property of moving without 

 being touched; sometimes one of them vill 

 move suddenly, while the rest remain still; at 

 other times they all move together, or separately, 

 without any regularity ; and even when detached 

 from the plant, they still retain their power of mo- 

 tion. You will find hereafter, that there are se- 

 veral other marks of a sort of feeling among plant; 

 of different tribes. The leaves of the trefoils al- 

 ways fold themselves up when rain approaches. 



