238 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



II. My second example I take from Withering's Ar- 

 rangement, vol. 2, p. 209, edit. 3. " The cusciita curopcca is 

 a parasitical plant. The seed opens and puts forth a little 

 spiral body, which does not seek the earth to take root, but 

 climbs in a spiral direction, from right to left, up other 

 plants, from which, by means of vessels, it draws its nour- 

 ishment." The "little spiral body" proceeding from the 

 seed, is to be compared with the fibres which seeds send out 

 in ordinary cases ; and the comparison ought to regard both 

 the form of the threads and the direction. They are straight, 

 this is spiral. They shoot downwards, this points up- 

 wards. In the rule and in the exception we equally per- 

 ceive design. 



III. A better known parasitical plant is the evergreen 

 shrub called the 'mistletoe. What we have to remark in 

 it is a singular instance of compensation. No art has yet 

 made these plants take root in the earth. Here, therefore, 

 might seem to be a mortal defect in their constitution. Let 

 us examine how this defect is made up to them. The seeds 

 are endued with an adhesive quality so tenacious, that if 

 they be rubbed upon the smooth bark of almost any tree, 

 they will stick to it. And then what follows ? Roots, 

 springing from these seeds, insinuate their fibres into the 

 woody substance of the tree ; and the event is, that a mis- 

 tletoe plant is produced next winter.* Of no other plant 

 do the roots refuse to shoot in the ground — of no othei 

 plant do the seeds possess this adhesive, generative quality, 

 v/hen applied to the bark of trees. 



IV. Another instance of the compensatory system is in 

 the autumnal crocus or meadow-safiron. colchicmn aulum- 

 nale. I have pitied this poor plant a thousand times. Itb 

 blossom rises out of the ground in the most forlorn condi- 

 tion possible, without a sheath, a fence, a calyx, or even a 

 leaf to protect it ; and that not in the spring, not to be visited 

 by summer suns, but under all the disadvantages of the de- 



* Withering's Botan. Arr., vol. I., p. 20^, edit 2. 



