PLANTS. 
21 
position. Linnaeus, again, has pushed his remarks 
on this subject still further. This celebrated na- 
turalist watched the daily motion of the leaves of a 
considerable number of plants, and published his 
account of them in a dissertation entitled Somnus 
Plantcirum. From having observed that many 
flowers open and shut regularly at certain hours in 
the day, he conceived an idea, as pleasing as it was 
ingenious, viz. that they form a kind of time-piece, 
to which he has given the name of Floras clock . 
We shall hereafter have occasion to mention the 
Dioncea muscipula, and the Hedysarum gyrans, one 
of which is a remarkable instance of vegetable irri- 
tability, and the other of spontaneous motion. 
Several observations have been made on the 
motion of the stamina of flowers, which prove that 
they are actuated by some secret impulse, which 
impels them to deposit the dust of their antherae 
on the end of the pistil. The anthers of many 
species of lily, before they open, are attached 
lengthways to the filaments parallel to the style, 
and at the distance from it of nearly half an inch. 
The moment that the pollen, or dust, begins to be 
shed, the same anthers begin to move upon the 
filaments which sustain them ; they sensibly ap- 
proach the stigma, one after another, and, having 
spread their fecundating dust upon that organ, retire 
almost immediately to their former stations. This 
movement is particularly apparent in the Lilium 
superbum Linn. 
The stamens of the Amaryllis formom&ima, the 
