EMISSION OF SCENTS FROM PLANTS. 363 



withered away, yet possess this flavour, if well 

 harvested. Artificial grasses, that is, crops com- 

 pounded of ray-grass and clover, possess little of 

 this smell when dry ; yet we shall often observe 

 very luxuriant plants of the vernal grass growing 

 with the crop : the smell which distinguishes well- 

 made hay probably proceeds from no individual 

 plant, but is a commixture of odours arising from 

 the various herbage of the crop. The scents pro- 

 ceeding from plants are confined to no one part, but 

 may proceed from roots, leaves, flowers, fruits, &c., 

 in various essential or gross states, or emitted from 

 glands or secretory vessels ; but when the odour 

 proceeds from the flower, it is by no means certain 

 what part of that organ produces it : yet, in many 

 cases, it most probably proceeds from the petals 

 transmitted from the plant through the claws at its 

 base, and escaping through orifices on their sur- 

 face ; at others, from the nectaries, or various parts 

 which compose the blossom. We can but conjec- 

 ture the object of the smell of plants, but it seems 

 most probably to be the signal that calls the nume- 

 rous tribes of the earth to find their various wants, 

 and supply their necessities, multiform as they may 

 be ; and probably most plants do transfuse such in- 

 timations of their presence, imperceptible to some, 

 but manifest to those which require them for the 

 objects of their being : the day, the evening, and 

 the night, each present these signals to the animated 

 creatures of the air. 



June and July, 1825. The quantity of that 



