THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 213 
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 
KEEPING PLANTS IN LIVING-ROOMS. 
I have been told that it is very dangerous to keep plants in my bed¬ 
room, but that I may keep them safely in my sitting-room. Is this the 
case ? and if it is, what is the reason ? 
Turnham Green, 
May 28 th, 1841. 
My correspondent has been rightly informed that plants may be kept 
with perfect safety in living-rooms, though they are injurious in bed¬ 
rooms. The reason is, that when plants are exposed to a strong light 
their leaves absorb a great portion of the carbonic acid gas which is 
floating in the atmosphere, and, after having decomposed it, they give 
out the oxygen. Exactly the reverse of this takes place with human 
beings: they inhale the atmospheric air, which is decomposed in 
their lungs, and the oxygen retained, while the carbonic acid gas is 
given out. Thus plants in rooms are far from injurious in the day, as the 
strong light they are exposed to enables them to decompose and purify 
the carbonic acid gas, which is always abundant in sitting-rooms, as they 
take away the unwholesome part, and leave only the oxygen; but in the 
darkness of the night their leaves give out carbonic acid gas, instead of 
absorbing it, and as a superabundance of this gas produces stupor, head¬ 
aches, and a sense of suffocation in those that breathe it, plants often produce 
these evil effects on those who keep them in bedrooms. Of course some 
persons are more affected than others, as the degree depends upon the 
nervous sensibility of the person acted upon. 
REVIVING PLANTS. 
My correspondent on this subject will find the following extract from 
the Journal of Science for 1828 contain all the information she wishes :— 
“ This is called a proved method of reviving plants, &c., when their 
leaves and buds are faded, and their bark and roots hard and nearly dry, 
by M. de Droste, of Hulshof. The directions are to dissolve camphor to 
saturation in alcohol, adding the former until it remains solid at the 
bottom ; a sufficient quantity of rain or river water is then to have the 
alcoholic solution added to it, in the proportion of four drops to one ounce 
of water. As the camphor comes in contact with the water, it will form 
a thin solid film, which is to be well beaten up with the water; for a 
