62 
MIMULUS SMITHII. 
London, that he supplied the leaves of a plant with fine filaments of beef, and from 
that treatment it grew more luxuriant than some others in his possession, which 
were not treated after that manner. This experiment goes far towards confirming 
the opinion that the dead insects are intended to supply the plant with animal 
manure. Dr. Barton, however, does not think it at all probable that either this 
plant, or others which grow in rich boggy soil, can need additional stimulus. 
There is no doubt some wise end is answered by so extraordinary an appendage. 
The plant grows naturally in the bogs of Carolina ; the flowers are white, and grow 
in corymbs, resembling umbels. There are also several species of Sundew ( Drosera ), 
which exhibit a similar phenomenon in the leaves. Those near the root are covered 
with long red bristles or hairs, bedewed with a sticky juice, possibly of a poisonous 
quality, especially destructive to insect life. If a fly settles on the upper surface of 
the leaf, it is first detained by the clammy liquid ; and then every hair turns 
inwards towards and over the insect, and remains curled, not only till the prisoner 
is dead, but until he is entirely consumed. The disc, which before was contracted 
and cone-like, then expands to its fullest breadth, and the hairs again become erect. 
It has, however, been thought that its fly-catching powers only consist in the 
viscosity of the leaves and hairs, and that any movement in the latter may be 
accounted for on the hypothesis, that by the motion of the hairs, or any part of the 
leaf, others may come in contact with and adhere to them. Hence an insect 
touching the leaf would find no possibility of escape, for amidst these globules of 
slimy liquid, every struggle would but render its extrication more impossible. 
Scientific men are equally at a loss to account for the use of the fly-catching 
properties of this plant, as they are with regard to others. Some have thought it to 
act merely in accordance with the law by which one thing preys upon another, so that 
nothing may become too abundant ; and thus the drosera is made an instrument of 
destruction, useless to itself, but subservient to the general good. There is some- 
thing peculiar in the time and manner of the flowering of this genus, for few of 
the species are ever observed with their flowers expanded ; and some persons have 
concluded that they either never properly expand, or that their expansion takes place at 
sunrise, and they quickly close again, or that it occurs at night. The fact is, they open 
about ten o’clock in the morning, and generally are closing about twelve. The usual 
flowering time is J uly, when they may be found in most of our marshes ; the leaves 
have a very novel appearance under a microscope : their loose cellular tissue glistening 
like gold, the fine long scarlet hair, tipped with a crimson knob, from which there 
exudes a clear white liquid, which on being touched with the finger, will draw out 
into a transparent thread more than an inch long, are all seen to very great 
advantage. Their medicinal properties appear to be very trifling ; for the most part 
they are acrid and poisonous. Sometimes the irritability wholly resides in the 
flower ; this is the case with the common Barberry-bush . The manner in which 
