172 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. , 



local attraction that deranged their polarity." x An- 

 other officer in the United States army calls it the 

 "" Pilot-weed." Hence it is evident that the belief 

 is widely prevalent that its leaves affect polarity. 



Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the 



meadow, 

 See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the 



magnet ; 

 It is the compass - flower, that the finger of God has 



suspended 

 Here on its fragile stalk, to direct the traveller's journey 

 Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert. 2 



And, in confirmation of this description by the 

 poet, it is stated, on authority, that " repeated obser- 

 vations upon the prairies, with measurements by the 

 •compass of the directions assumed by hundreds of 

 leaves, especially of the radicle ones, have shown 

 that as to prevalent position, the popular belief has 

 a certain foundation in the fact." It has also been 

 found that the anatomical structure of the leaves 

 ■corresponds to this position. Since the leaves tend 

 to assume a position in which the two faces are 

 about equally illuminated by the sun, it has been 

 •observed that the stomata are about equally abun- 

 dant on both sides, and the arrangement of " palisade 

 ■cells " of both strata are nearly the same. Sir Joseph 



1 Appendix to "Notes with the Army of the West" (1848), 

 p. 388. 2 Longfellow's " Evangeline." 



