448 THE PLEASURE, OR ' [July. 
der, where they are to be watered and shaded until well taken with 
the ground and growing. They may remain in these beds till Sep- 
tember, October, or March, and are then to be taken up with balls 
of earth and planted where intended to flower. 
Pinks. 
The most valuable kinds of pinks should be treated in every re- 
spect as directed for carnations. 
Sensitive Plants. 
The sensitive plants which have been raised in hot-beds, may 
about the first of this month, if not done in June, be brought out 
into the open air and placed in a very warm situation, for they de- 
light in much heat; but some ought to be kept constantly under 
glasses, for when fully exposed to the weather, they lose much of 
their sensibility. 
The species I particularly allude to, is the Mimosa piidica, or 
humble and sensitive plant, which is thus characterized in the flow- 
ing poetry of Darwin: 
"Weak with nice sense the chaste Mimosa stands, 
From each rude touch withdraws her tender hands; 
Oft as light clouds o'erspread the summer glade, 
Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade; 
And feels alive through all her tender form, 
The whisper'd murmurs of the gath'ring storm; 
Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night, 
And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light." 
"Naturalists," says Dr. Darwin, "have not explained the imme- 
diate cause of the collapsing of the sensitive plant; the leaves meet 
and close in the night during the sleep of the plant, or when 
exposed to much cold in the daytime in the same manner as when 
they are aifected by external violence, folding their upper surfaces 
together, and in part over each other like scales or tiles; so as to 
expose as little of the upper surface as may be to the air; but do 
not indeed collapse quite so far: for when touched in the night 
during their sleep, they fall still farther, especially when touched 
on the footstalks between the stems and leaflets, which seems to 
be their most sensitive or irritable part. Now as their situation, 
after being exposed to external violence, resembles their sleep, but 
with a greater degree of collapse, may it not be owing to a numb- 
ness or paralysis consequent to too violent irritation, like the 
fainting of animals from pain or fatigue. A sensitive plant being 
kept in a dark room till some hours after day-break, its leaves and 
leaf-stalks were collapsed, as in its most profound sleep, and on 
exposing it to the light, above twenty, minutes passed, before the 
plant was thoroughly awake, and had quite expanded itself. During 
the night the upper or smoother surfaces of the leaves are appressed 
together; this would seem to show that the office of this surface of 
