No. 249. 
MIMOSA SENSITIVA. 
_ Class. Order, 
POLYGAMIA MONOECIA — 
The sensitive plant is said to have been 
eultivated i in the Oxford garden in 1648. 
It rises with a slender shrubby stem to the 
height of three or four feet, with loose pen- 
ends of which, 
light loam, and preserved in the stove. 
Like most other pinnated leaved plants, the 
leaves close in the evening, and open again 
early in the morning: they likewise move 
if touched, and the stalks, if pressed, fall 
down, but recover their former situation in 
a little time. This remarkable property, 
which also exists in some other plants, has 
exercised the ingenuity of naturalists in en- 
deavouring to account for it. Their re- 
searches, however, have not yet much eluci- 
dated the matter, and it is not likely that 
VOL. HL Q 
