ON THE HAIRS O? PLANTS. 



Fruit known 

 by its various 

 changes 

 ending in 

 seeding. 



Innumerable 

 offices the 

 Jiairs perform, 



DifFerem from 



the armature 

 of plants. 



to go to seed, though at first appearing like a drop of water, 

 which, even while your eye is on it, turns white, and soon be- 

 comes hard and firm; changing to seed. These are found 

 ©n the mint, the pea, and innumerable other plants, said to 

 perspire much. That which Hales took for perspiration on 

 the leaves of the sunflower is a sort of mushroom, extremely 

 moist, shown at fig. II, ?«; and that on the vine, fig. l^ : but 

 1 must stop, or my sketches would never end. I observe 

 that the cryptogamian plants on the rose, and many other 

 plants, because red, are allowed not to be perspiration: but 

 surely the proof is not in colour, but on the matter passing 

 from flower to fruit and seed, which ail this sort does in a 

 day or two ; yielding generally a sort of sirup, and equally 

 nourished by the dews of the atmosphere: and certainly 

 equally unfit with the haii-s to be reconed perspiration. I 

 flatter myself therefore, that this will serve to convinG€( those 

 who still doubt. 



If 1 were to mention all the different oflSces to which the 

 hairs are applied, it would be endless. To catch, convey, 

 and mix, the powder of the stamen with the sirup of the pis- 

 til, they are peculiarly adapted, having in eocii hair a duct 

 for conveying the mixed juices, when melted, to the canal in 

 the pistil. All this is plainly seen, since in the solar micro- 

 scope each hair is as large as a walking stick. How many 

 various offices do the hairs perform in the corolla, calyx, and 

 stipula ! There is one peculiarly appropriated to this latter 

 part, in all diadelphian plants, most curiously formed. How 

 wonderful is the hair in wet plants! placed to guard the air 

 vessels from being tilled with insects, they exactly resemble 

 ewords, shoot in a circle and meet in the middle of the vessel 

 as at fig. 7. How many an insect and water-fly have I seen 

 run through by them ! But this is not all, they have a sort 

 of spring, which makes the hair strike down, and thus get 

 rid of the creature it has threaded. When 1 give my letter 

 on water-plants, I shall show the mechanism of this hair, 

 which is as wonderful as any of the preceding account. 



T'his subject should not be made to interfere with the ar-« 

 mature of plants, which is wholly of a different nature, and 

 consists but of two sorts of thorns; the 1st like those of the 

 rose, the acacia, the gooseberry, &c., is. formed entirely of 



