PLANT. 
heavens, by showing what stars are then 
rising in the meridian, or what setting. 2. 
To know at what hour and minute any star 
rises or sets, &c. Turn the moveable plate 
till the given star reaches the horizon east 
or west, and against the given day, on the 
moveable plate, is the hour and minute on 
the exterior or immoveable one : and in the 
same manner may most of the problems, 
usually resolved by the celestial globe, be 
determined. 
PLANT, in botany, an organic vegetable 
body, consisting of roots and other parts. 
Whether capable either of sensation, or of 
spontaneous motion, is not yet fully ascer- 
tained. It attaches itself to otlier bodies, 
in such a manner as to derive nourishment 
from them, and to propagate itself by seeds. 
The constituent parts of plants are the 
roots, stems, branches, rind, or bark, leaves, 
flowers, and seeds ; which greatly vary, 
both in figure and size, according to the 
nature of particular trees, shrubs, &c. Their 
various appearances have induced botanists 
to divide the vegetable kingdom into orders, 
classes, genera, species, and varieties 5 for 
gn account of which see Botany. 
According to the Linnasan system, plants 
take their denominations from the sex of 
their flowers, in the following manner ; — 
1. Hermaphrodite plants, are sucli as upon 
the same root bear flowers that are all her- 
maphrodite, as in most genera. 2. Andro- 
gynous, male and female, such as upon the 
same root bear both male and female 
flowers, as in the class Monrecia. 3. Male, 
such as upon the same root beai' male flowers 
only, as in the class Dicecia. 4, Female, 
such as upon the same root bear female 
flowers only, as in the class Dicecia. 5. Po- 
lygamous, such as, either in the same indivi- 
dual plant, or in different individual plants 
of the same species, have hermaphrodite 
flow’ers, and flowers of either or both sexes, 
as in the class Polygamia. All plants, how- 
ever minute, are propagated by seed ; and 
so easy is their cultivation, that in many in- 
stances they may be reared by parting their 
roots, or depositing layers, cuttings, &c. of 
the parent stock in such soils as are most 
congenial to their nature. Hence some 
botanists consider them as somewhat analo- 
gous to animals ; a conjecture that is strong- 
ly corroborated by the regular circulation 
of the sap throughout all their pgrts ; and 
by the sleep of plants, or the faculty which 
some possess of assuming at night a position 
different from that in which they appear 
during the day, In the second volume of 
the Manchester Transactions, we find some 
speculations on the perceptive power of 
vegetables by Dr. Percival, who attempts 
to show by the several analogies of organi- 
zation, life, instinct, spontaneity, and self- 
motion, that plants, like animals, are en- 
dued both with the powers of perception 
and enjoyment. The attempt, though in- 
geniously supported, however, fails to con- 
vince. That there is an analogy between 
animals and vegetables is certain ; but we 
cannot from thence conclude, that they 
either perceive or enjoy. Botanists have, 
it is true, derived from anatomy and physio- 
logy almost all the terms employed in the 
description of plants. But we cannot from 
thence conclude, that their organization, 
though it bears an analogy to that of ani- 
mals, is the sign of a living principle, if to 
this principle we annex the idea of percep- 
tion. Yet so fully is our author convinced 
of the tnith of it, that he does not think it 
extravagant to suppose, that, in some future 
period, perception may be discovered to 
extend even beyond the limits now assigned 
to vegetable life. 
Mr. Good, the learned author of the trans- 
lation of Lucretius, delivered in the spring 
of the present year, before the Medical So- 
ciety of London, a discourse “ On the gene- 
ral Structure and Physiology of Plants com- 
pared with those of Animals, and the mutual 
Convertibility of their Organic Elements,” 
which contained much interesting matter^ 
and many curious and ingenious speculations. 
He began by assuming, what indeed is the ba- 
sis of the sexual system, that every thing that 
has life is produced from an egg ; that the 
egg of the plant is its seed. The seed is 
sometimes naked, and sometimes covered 
with a pericarp, which is of various forms 
and structures : the seed itself consists in- 
ternally of a corculum, or little heart, and 
externally of a parenchymatous substance, 
called a cotyledon, which is necessary for 
the germination and future growth of the 
seed, aud may be denominated its lungs or 
placentule. The corculuni is the “ punctum 
saliens” of vegetable life, and to this the 
cotyledon is subservient. The corcle con- 
sists of an ascending and descending part : 
the former is called its plumule, which gives 
birth to the trunk and branches ; from the 
latter spring the root and radicles. The 
position of the corcle in the seed, which is 
always in tlie vicinity of the eye, is a cica- 
trix, or umbilicus, remaining after the sepa- 
ration of the funis from the pericarp, to which 
the seed has been attached. The first ra- 
