THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 485 



them in all their magnificence. And yet one colour, 

 black, is wanting amid this multitude of varied tints. 

 Some corollas, such as those of certain Sca1)iosa?, are, it is 

 true, of a sombre purple, bvit a perfect black is never seen 

 in this organ. 



One phenomenon occurs in respect to the colouring 

 of flowers Avhich has been a good deal talked about; it is 

 the mutability of it. Pallas, when exploring the banks of 

 the Volga, remarked with astonishment that a sjoecies 

 of anemone, the Anemone |?«?^?is, sometimes bore white 

 flowers, sometimes yellow, and sometimes red flowers. 

 This phenomenon, still unexplained, appeared so aljnormal 

 that it was mentioned everywhere. It is, however, com- 

 mon enough ; and we may observe it any time in France 

 without encountering such a long journey. 



The field-pimpernel {Anagallis arvemis), so common in 

 our country districts, frecpiently displays this change. 

 Usually its flower is of a vermilion red, but it is also 

 sometimes of a magnificent sky blue, which made some 

 botanists think they were two different species. 



A pretty little plant of the genus Myosotis, which is 

 met with in our arid grounds, varies still more singularly 

 in its colour, for on the same stalk we find at the same 

 time red, yellow, and blue flowers — a peculiarity to Avhicli 

 this species owes the name of Myosotis clirersicoloi' which 

 has been given to it. 



of an inch thick, of an elongated oval form and crimson colour, tinted -with gi-eeu 

 in the less developed sj^ecimens, and marked with scales like those of a fir-cone. 

 The leaves are so straight-grained that they can be torn from toj) to bottom 

 without deviating a single line from a straight course. Rain rarelj' or never falls 

 where this plant exists. The plant seems sometimes to attain a much greater 

 size than mentioned above, the leaves being two and even three fathoms long, 

 and the apes of the trunk, or rather, from the confused account given of it, the 

 flower itself, being six feet wide, and opening like two immense clam-shells, some 

 eighteen inches across. — Science and Art, vol. i. — Tr. 



