SECT. XIII. i. r. OF VEGETABLE, &c 73 



SECT. XIII. 



* 



OF VEGETABLE ANIMATION. 



I. I. Vegetables are irritable > mimofa, dionaa mufcipifla. Vegeta- 

 ble fecretions. 2. Vegetable buds are inferior animals^ are liable 

 to greater or lefs irritability. II. Stamens and piftils of plants 

 flew marks of fenftbility. III. Vegetables poj/efs fome degree of 

 'volition. IV. Motions of plants are ajjbciated like thofe of ani- 

 mals. V. I. Vegetable Jiruclure like that of animals, their an- 

 ther* and fligmas are living creatures Male flowers of Vallif- 

 neria. 2. Whether vegetables poj/efs ideas ? They have organs 

 of fenfe, as of touch and fme// 9 and ideas of external things ? 



1. i. THE fibres of the vegetable world, as well as thofe of 

 the animal, are excitable into a variety of motions by irritations 

 of external objects. This appears particularly in the mimofa 

 or fcnfitive plant, whofe leaves contraft on the flighted injury ; 

 the dionrea mufcipula, which was lately brought over from the 

 marfhes of America, prefents us with another curious initance 

 of vegetable irritability ; its leaves are armed with fpines on 

 their upper edge, and are fpread on the ground around the 

 item ; when an infect creeps on any of them in its patfage to 

 the flower or feed, the leaf ihurs up like a Reel rat-trap, and de- 

 ftroys its enemy. See Botanic Garden, Part II. note on Silene. 



The various fecretions of vegetables, as of odour, fruit, gum, 

 refin, wax, honey, feem brought about in the fame manner as in 

 the glands of animals : thet attelefs moifture of the earth is con- 

 verted by the hop plant into a bitter juice ; as by the caterpil- 

 lar in the nutfhell the fwert kernel is converted into a bitter 

 powder. While the power of abforption in the roots and barks 

 of vegetables is excited into action by the fluids applied to their 

 mouths like the lacleals and lymphatics of animals. 



2. The individuals of the vegetable world may be confidered 

 as inferior or lefs perfect animals ; a tree is a congeries of many 

 living buds, and in this refpecl: refembles the branches of coral- 

 line, which are a congeries of a multitude of animals. Each of 

 thefe buds of a tree has its proper leaves or petals for lungs, 

 produces its viviparous or its oviparous offspring in buds or 

 feeds ; has its own roots, which extending down the ftem of 

 the tree are interwoven with the roots of the other buds, and 

 form the bark, which is the only living part of the ftem, is an- 

 nually renewed, and is fuperinduced upon the former bark, 

 which then dies, and with its fiagnated juices gradually harden- 



VOL. I. L ing 



