122 THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
not, when lingering over the narrative of the traveller in 
the deserts of Africa, participated the joy which he felt 
when his weary wanderings brought him to a clump of 
mimosa-trees? Glad indeed w^as he, wdren his eye had 
seen nothing for many days but sand and sky, to gaze 
on the feathery foliage of the mimosa, and the golden 
threads of its delicate blossoms, and to sit down in its 
checkered shadow to take his repast, in a spot where none 
but the wild beast and the fowl of the wdlderness have 
found a home. Alas, how many who have been cheered 
by the sight of a tree of the desert, have laid them down 
to die upon the sands which nourished it ! One kind of 
mimosa (Mimosa sensitiva) is the sensitive plant of the 
conservatory. The scarlet blossoms of the Decannee bean 
(Butea superba) are described by Forbes, as he saw them 
in the neighbourhood of Bombay, as '' contrasting vividly 
with their black stalks, and giving so brilliant an effect 
to the woods as to appear at sunset like imm.ense forests 
in a glow of lire.” 
But I must not omit mentioning the Judas-tree, wTich 
is a handsome tree of the leguminous kind, bearing pink 
flowers on its trunk. Its name is derived from the sup- 
position that the wretched Judas hung himself upon it. 
If we are to believe the old botanist Gerarde, however, 
he hung himself upon an elder-tree. 
To this order belong also the liquorice and the indigo, 
and that wonderful plant the moving saintfoin (Hedysarum 
gyrans), the leaves of which, without any apparent cause, 
are in almost perpetual motion. 
Linoi^us asserted that not one of all this numerous and 
universally extended family of plants is poisonous. This 
assertion has since been found to require some little quali- 
fication. The poisonous plants are, how'ever, very rare; 
\vhile the nutritious are abundant. The scarlet berries, 
frequently used for necklaces, are the seeds of the Abrus 
precatoriiis, a leguminous plant ; and cases are recorded 
in which persons have been killed by accidentally punctur- 
ing the finger and admitting their juice, while piercing 
them with a needle. The negroes have so exaggerated 
an idea of . their deleterious properties, that they say if 
one half of a seed be eaten by a man it will cause death. 
The seeds of the laburnum are violently emetic in their 
