PECULIARITIES OF PLANTS. 
151 
the sympathetic stem, feeling every motion, pursues the same indi¬ 
rect course above which the root does below : and thus the sturdy 
plant, through the means of these subterraneous encounters and s hardy 
conflicts, assumes form and character, and becomes in a due course 
of centuries, a picturesque tree. 
February 8, 1835. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
ARTICLE XI.—PECULIARITIES OF PLANTS. 
(Continued from Vol. 2, page 459.) 
Our last remarks related to those plants possessing the property of 
entrapping insects by their irritability, we now come to others 
equally if not more destructive to tbe insect race, by having their 
stems, leaves, or flowers, or all three, covered with a viscous liquid : 
the insects settling upon such are unable to escape, every struggle 
entangling them more than the last. 
Amongst these may be enumerated thejRobinia viscosa. Calceola¬ 
ria viscosa, several species of Silene, Sweet Briar, Common Moss 
Rose, and the Fraxinella. The Moss Rose has not only a stem 
thickly covered with the viscous liquid, but possesses a mossy coat, 
which, when not disfigured by dead insects, is, in every body’s esti¬ 
mation, a great addition to its beauty. This beautiful variety is said 
to have been raised quite accidentally, by planting a common pro- 
vence rose in a very damp and shady situation; and it has been 
thought by some persons that any rose may be made mossy, by con¬ 
stantly keeping it in the shade, and where the air is very damp for 
want of ventillation. This opinion we can by no means agree to, as 
a general rule, whatever might be done in a solitary instance. 
Who does not know that after a hot dry day, the Common Fraxi¬ 
nella emit a resinous vapour, which will readily take fire, and burn 
freely, if a candle be introduced to it, without destroying the plant. 
But leaving the subject of the fly-catching properties of plants, 
and viewing their peculiarities and metamorphoses, the mind is led 
to things exceedingly curious. Many of the movements of plants 
are purely mechanical, others cannot be attributed to mechanism, 
because they are attended with phenomena exactly resembling mus¬ 
cular contractility in animals. 
The Hedysarum gyrans is constantly in motion. These motions 
are thought to be connected with respiration. In the Tiger Lilly, 
the pistillum will bend first towards one stamen and then towards 
