SENSITIVE PLANT 
(.Bashful Love.) 
HIS delicate emblem of bashfulness is a member of 
the Mimosa family. In India it becomes a tail 
tree. 
The old pastoral poet, W. Browne, alludes to its 
peculiarities thus : 
“ Look how the feeling-plant, which learned swains 
Relate to grow on the East Indian plains, 
Shrinks up his dainty leaves if any sand 
You throw thereon, or touch it with your hand.” 
Matthew Prior alludes to the diversity of opinion as tc 
what causes this phenomenon : 
“ Whence does it happen that the plant, which well 
We name the * sensitive,’ should move and feel? 
Whence know her leaves to answer her command, 
And with quick horror fly the neighbouring hand ?” 
There is one most remarkable member of this extra¬ 
ordinary family, known as the “friendly-tree,” which 
droops it branches whenever any person approaches it, 
seeming as if it saluted those who sought retreat beneath 
its sheltering boughs. Moore calls it 
“ That courteous tree. 
Which bows to all who seek its canopy.” 
