22G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, J.otart 15, 1861. 
nstance : If we wished a house to average 40° we would have it up 
to 45°, and theu we should be satisfied if it fell to 37° or 38° on 
a cold morning, and the fire burning slowly during the night. 
Again : If we wished an average of 45° at night in a contemplated 
severe night we should not mind a few degrees more before bed¬ 
time, and then it might fall to 40° in the morning. In giving 
this extra heat walls, &c., absorb it, and give it out again. We 
hope these hints may be of benefit; if we can do more we shall 
be glad. See “ Doings of the Past Week.”] 
NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 
gARCANTHUS Pabishh ( Mr . Parish's Sareanthus). 
Nat. Ord., Orchidece. Gynandria Monandria. Sent to Messrs. 
Low, Clapton Nursery, by the Rev. C. S. P. Parish, from Moul- 
mein. Flowers golden yellow. Blooms in August.—( Botanical 
Magazine, t. 5217.) 
Cyrtantiius sanguineus Fed-flowered Cyrtanthus). 
Nat. Ord., Amaryllidacese. Hexandria Monogynia. Called 
also Gastronema sanguineum. Imported from Caffraria by 
Messrs. Backhouse, nurserymen, York. It flowers iu the green¬ 
house in August.— (Ibid., t. 6218.) 
Sonchus gummifeb ( Gum-bearing Sowthistle ). 
Nat. Ord., Composite. Syngenesis sequalis. One of the 
shrubby species peculiar to the Canary Isles. Flowered in Mr. 
Saunders’ greenhouse at Reigate, in July. Flowers yellow.— 
{Ibid., t. 5219 ) 
Guzmannia tricolor ( Three-coloured Guzmannia). 
Nat. Ord., Bromeliacete. Hexandria Monogynia. Very 
handsome, bracts below green striped with black; upper bracts 
bright red; flowers white. Native of St. Domingo and 
Jamaica.— {Ibid., t. 5220.) 
Cham.erops Fortunei {Mr. Fortune's Chamcerops). 
Nat. Ord., Palma*. Polygamia Dioecia. Well known as 
“ Mr. Fortune’s Chusan Palm.” Most hardy of all the Palms. 
Has remained nearly unprotected near London for ten winters. 
How has it endured the present one ?— {Ibid., t. 5221.) 
Solanum runcinatum ( Puneinate-leaved Solatium). 
Nat. Ord., Solanacese. Pentandria Monogynia. Native of 
Chili. An ornamental greenhouse plant. Flowers purple.— 
{Ibid., t. 5?22.) 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
{Continued from page 173.) 
The functions of animals and plants are in a like degree 
analogous. Animals take in their food by the agency of the 
mouth, and prepare it for digestion, either by various degrees of 
mastication, or by attrition, as in the gizzards of birds. In this 
they differ from plants ; but these have a sufficient compensa¬ 
tion, inasmuch as that they imbibe their food in a fluid form, 
liquid, or aeriform, and, consequently, in a state already of the 
finest possible division. Animal and vegetable remains are their 
common food, and salts of various kinds are their condiments 
and stimulants ; plants having this advantage over animals, 
that as they absorb only the soluble and finer parts of their 
nutriments, and their absorbing organs have the power of 
rejecting that which is offensive, they have no offensive matters 
to separate such as appear in the excrements of animals. 
In the animal stomach the food undergoes an extensive change, 
being reduced to a pulp of greater specific gravity, and being 
altered entirely both in taste and odour. In the sap-vessels of 
plants, which may be truly considered as their primary organ of 
digestion, then’ food or sap undergoes a change precisely similar; 
its colour and flavour are altered, and its specific gravity 
increased. 
From its stomach the animal’s food passes into the intestines, 
is there subjected to the action of the bile, and the chyle or 
nutritive portion is separated from that which is excrementitious. 
In its passage through the intestines, the chyle is absorbed by 
the lacteal vessels, and conveyed into the blood; and these 
mingled liquids are propelled by the heart into the lungs, to be 
there exposed to the action of the air. The vital liquid now 
changes its purple hue to a florid red, loses a portion of its 
carbon and watery particles, the former combining with the 
oxygen of the atmospheric air in the lungs, and being breathed 
forth in the form of carbonic acid gas. As plants take in as 
food no gross, unneeded ingredients, it is obvious that no process 
like the biliary operation is required in their course of digestion. 
But in them the food or sap, proceeding at once along the 
branches, is poured into the leaves, which are the very lungs of 
the vegetable world. Here, as is the blood, its colour is changed, 
and oxygen emitted from it during the light hours of the twenty- 
four; but carbonic acid is breathed forth during the night, 
and, at all periods, a considerable amount of watery vapour is 
emitted. 
From the lungs, by the agency of the heart, the blood is pro¬ 
pelled through the arteries over the whole animal frame, 
supplying nourishment and warmth to all the parts, and where, 
by those being abstracted, it is again converted into purple or 
venous blood, and is returned by the veins to undergo a repeti¬ 
tion of those changes already noted as being effected in the 
lungs. In plants the sap, after exposure to the action of the air 
in them leaves, is returned by another set of vessels, situated in 
the bark, ministering to the growth and support of the whole 
plant. It is true, that only under certain circumstances, detailed 
in another chapter, is heat evolved during the processes of 
vegetation ; but the circulation of the sap in plants, beyond all 
doubt, enables them to resist the intense colds and heats of their 
native climates. In frosts, the most intense and prolonged, we 
find the interior of trees remain unfrozen ; and, under the 
meridian sun of the tropics, the sap of the Pahn and of all other 
trees retains coolness. This power to resist extremely elevated 
and depressed temperatures is characteristic of all animated 
nature. 
Such is the close similarity in the digestive and circulatory 
processes characterising the members of the two great kingdoms of 
organised nature, a resemblance which obtains in all the other 
functions enjoyed by them in common. During respiration, the 
air inhaled by animals through the mouth and nostrils proceeds 
immediately to the lungs, and acts upon the blood; in plants, 
the air inhaled by their leaves operates instantaneously upon the 
sap. Oxygen is the vital air of animals, so that gas and carbonic 
acid gas are equally essential to plants. If animals be placed in a 
situation where they inhale pure oxygen, their functions are 
highly excited and increased in rapidity ; but it is an exhiliration 
speedily terminating in exhaustion and death, if the inhalation 
be continued for a protracted time. So plants will flourish with 
increased vigour in an atmosphere containing one-twelfth of 
carbonic acid, but even this brings on premature decay ; and if 
it exceeds that proportion, destruction is still more rapidly 
induced. During sleep, animals exhale less carbonic acid than 
during their waking hours, so plants emit a much diminished 
amount of oxygen during the night. 
We might now proceed to enumerate the facts demonstrative 
that plants are gifted with sensation, if these had not already 
been stated when considering how salts affect plants. In ad¬ 
dition to those facts we will only observe, that plants are 
obviously stimulated by light. Everybody must have observed, 
that they bend towards the point whence its brightest influence 
proceeds. M. Bonnet, the French botanist, demonstrated this 
by some very satisfactory experiments, in which plants, growing 
in a dark cellar, all extended themselves towards the same small 
orifice admitting a few illuminating rays. 
Almost every flower has a particular degree of light requisite 
for its full expansion. The blossoms of the Pea and other papi¬ 
lionaceous plants, spread out their wings in fine weather, to 
admit the solar rays, and again close them at the approach of 
night. Plants requiring powerful stimulants do not expand 
their flowers until noon, whilst some would be destroyed if com¬ 
pelled to open in the meridian sun—of such is the night-blooming 
Cereus, the flowers of which speedily droop, even if exposed to 
the blaze of light attendant on Indian festivities. 
From these and other facts incidentally mentioned in pre¬ 
ceding chapters, and others which will be stated when consider¬ 
ing the health of plants, without believing that they demonstrate 
sensation to exist in plants as acute as that possessed by the 
superior or more perfect classes of animals, yet they certainly 
are satisfactory evidence that some plants possess it to a degree 
nearly as high as that with which the zoophytes, or even the 
polypus and leech, are gifted. Some of these animals may be 
cut into pieces, and each section will become a perfect individual; 
of others, their heads being taken off, may be grafted upon other 
bodies ; and a third class of them may be turned with their 
insides outwards, without any apparent inconvenience. If plants 
