ON THE HA.IRS OP PLANTS. 



Hairs appro* 

 priated for the 

 decomposition 

 of water. 



The erypto- 

 gamian fruit 

 cannot be 

 taken for the 



jnstruments. 



The most ex- 

 traordinary 

 instruments 

 found in sinall 

 plants. 



Extraordinary 

 hairs seldom 

 found in dou- 

 ble flowers. 



Fig. 5 is the one that appears constantly used for the (de- 

 composition of water, where it passes away in a few minutes, 

 with its usual bubbling. I have often seen the same decom- 

 position between the two glasses of my sliders, when exposed 

 to a very hoi sun; in short, it is a process so continually 

 taking place, that you cannot make the proceedings of the 

 vegetable world visible to the eye, without a perpetual re- 

 currence of this chemical work: sufh a quantity of hidro* 

 gen is wanted, not only for the juices of the bark, but for the 

 seed, inflated with it, that the process must of course be 

 perpetually going on. In describing the various sorts of in- 

 struments 1 have observed, I have given two or three that 

 strike as most singular; but they are in such numbers 

 in plants, and so various, that 1 have found it difficult to se- 

 lect theip. It is not uncommon to see several different sorts 

 of iijstruments on the same plant, apparently appropriated 

 to ^ variety of purpos'-s, nor is it possible tp mistake the fruit 

 for the instrument: the latter so much resembles the purest 

 ^ryst^l, and their forms are so extiaordinary, their valves so 

 truly mechanical, that no person can see them, and take 

 them for anything but what they are, " an instrument;'* 

 pordid I ever show them without exciting an exclamation of 

 surprise. I have once or twice found them inflated with a 

 green liquid; but this is very rare. This is the case in the 

 Iovc«appIe. What in that plant was supposed to be per- 

 spiration is a small instrumeni of this kind (see iig. 6U 



Extraordinarily figured hairs are rarely to be found, except 

 in herbaceous ^imuals, or smnll plants. I'he wild plants 

 exceed the cultivated in assistance of this kind. It would 

 seem, |hat, wheq art lends her aid, nature is less attentive to 

 the preservation qf her nurslings: though I believe it re- 

 quires many years cultivatiqn to lose any of them, still I 

 have found occasional hairs ofteuer on wild plants than oij 

 garden ones, and double flowers almost banish them. Trees 

 and shrubs have seldom any but simple formed hairs, if 

 those with double cases or valves deserve this epithet; but 

 occasional assistance of this kind is pprpetually found, parr 

 ticularly among exotic trees. Nor are hairs found often on 

 evergreens; they would undoubtedly burst with the first 

 frost of winter. The firs also are void of all assistance of this 



kind. 



