THE ALSTRCEMERIA, ITS VARIETIES AND CULTIVATION. 
587 
theory in the presence of a beautiful person, 
or before his wife, who, it is said, had received 
a portion of Nature's favours in this respect. 
If the grasses supported the reasoning of the 
Professor of Upsal, the trees of the orchard, 
and the bananas of the hot-house, were evi- 
dently against him ; and in this philosophy of 
final causes the most attractive reasonings are 
often only so many paradoxes. 
One species, called by Tussac, Alstroemeria 
edulis, possesses roots containing a considerable 
portion of good fecula, thus constituting an 
article of wholesome food. This species is 
found in English gardens. 
Alstroemeria lAgtu, cultivated for the beauty 
of its flowers, which are of a rosy carmine, 
"the two upper petals being varied with deeper 
tints, is not only remarkable for its perfume, 
but also for the nourishing fecula extracted 
from its roots, which Tussac, in his Flora des 
Antilles, relates to be as wholesome as it is 
plentiful. 
Such are the economical and medicinal 
uses of this beautiful genus ; but some of the 
species possess another property, one which 
relates to the science of life, viz. physiology. 
In our climate the leaves of plants grow hori- 
zontally, consequently the under side faces 
the ground, and the upper the heavens. From 
this position is obtained that shade which is 
the principal charm of the forest. In New 
Holland the acacias and the eucalypti, which 
form such forests of large trees, have " no 
longer leaves, but phyllodia ;" that is to say, 
a sort of leaves which grow straight and nar- 
row, " so that there are two lateral surfaces, 
and forests without shade." Now by physio- 
logy it has been proved that this position of 
leaves, or phyllodia, so diverse, bears a rela- 
tion to the situation on these organs of those 
absorbent mouths called stomates, — singular 
openings armed with mobile lips, essential to 
the life of plants. Such plants as are quite 
submerged are destitute of these mouths, which 
have relation to the air : what could they 
have done in water ? Those plants that 
float with their leaves on the water, as the 
nuphars and nymphseas, have stomates in the 
upper surface of their leaves, which are in 
contact with the air, and none on those which 
are submersed in the liquid. This certainly 
proves that the stomates exercise their func- 
tions in relation to the atmosphere ; but this 
position of the stomates at the upper surface 
of the leaves of nymphaea proves also that 
these organs can be acted on without injury 
by the direct rays of the sun, since the rays 
fall directly on the surface of the water. With 
the great majority of our plants, however, the 
stomates are produced on the inferior surface 
of the leaves, and do not receive the solar 
rays directly, but by transmission. A stomate 
is not covered with a skin any more than the 
spongioles of the roots ; it is an organ sub- 
mitted to the diffuse light, and which has re- 
lations with the ground beneath it ; the one, 
the spongiole, plunged in the soil ; the other, 
the stomate, placed in face of it, aid parallel 
to its surface. When Linnasus saw Alstroe- 
meria peler/rina he was struck with the ap- 
pearance of its leaves. " They are resupinate," 
said he ; that is to say, lying on their backs. 
By-and-by botanists observed that the leaves 
of some Alstrcemerias were whiter and paler 
above than underneath, and that when they 
were turned (that is, by untwisting their base,) 
so as to have their greener surface exposed to 
the sun, they assumed their wonted position 
by becoming re-twisted. Each of these leaves 
is then distorted by a spiral turning (tour 
d'epier.) Professor Lindley showed (Introd. 
to Hot., p. 123, 3d edit.) for the first time, 
we believe, that the inverse position of the 
leaves of Alstroemeria originates from their 
organization ; because with them the upper 
surface is organized as the inferior is in ordi- 
nary leaves, while the under surface is abso- 
lutely like the upper in the great majority of 
plants. This phenomenon is the more in- 
teresting the more explicable it becomes. 
Thus, Professor Lindley, in dissecting the 
leaves of Alstroemeria, found that they pos- 
sessed at their under surface, which is of 
course turned from the ground, a greater 
number of stomates than on that which would 
have been the upper surface, but for the 
twisted petiole. 
The Alstroemeria possesses, then, an ob- 
vious interest as regards its anatomy and 
physiology ; and there are none who, taking 
up such profitable studies in connexion with 
a garden, would wish to be without the repre- 
sentatives of so remarkable a genus. 
The Alstrcemerias have been arranged in 
a group of the Amaryllids of an anomalous 
character, related to the group of Agaves. 
With the Ixioliron, a plant belonging to 
Mount Lebanon, and the Campynema, a 
genus originally from the Island of Van 
Diemen, the Alstrcemerias, which are distri- 
buted throughout the whole of tropical Ame- 
rica, and the extra-tropical parts of Australia, 
approach, by the Doryanthes excelsa — that 
magnificent tree Amaryllid, especially found 
in New Holland, — to the luxuriant vegetation 
of the Agaves and the Fourcroyas, two forms 
of the American flora. This gradation of 
organization, compared with what represents 
the several forms of the various countries of 
the globe, is an object not unworthy the con- 
templation of thoughtful minds. Variety in 
the works of creation doubtless rests on fixed 
laws ; but in this idea of cosmos, we do not 
yet know what relation there is between, the 
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