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Show [ 32 ] Oft as light clouds o'er-pafs the Summer-glade, Alann' d fhe tretnbles at the moving {hade ; And feels, alive through all her tender form, 'fhe whifper' d murmurs of the gathering fiorm ; Shuts her fweet eye-lids to approaching night, And haih with frefhen'd charms the rifing light. vr eil' d, with gay decency and modeft pride, Slow to the 1nofqne {he moves, an eaftern bride; There her [oft vows unceaG.ng love record, Queen of the bright feraglio of her lord.- So finks or rifes with the changeful hour The liquid :G.lver in its glaffy tower. fo far, fince I have found, when touched in the night during their Deep, they fall {till farth er; cfpccially when touched on the foot-fialks between the fiems and the leaflets, which feems to be their mofi fenfitive or irritable part. Now, as their fituation after bei ng expofed to external violence refembles their fleep, but with a greater degree of collapfe, may it not be owing to a numbnefs or paralyfis confequent to too violent irritation, like the faintings of animals from pain or fatigue 1 I kept a fenfitive plant in a dark room till fome hours after day-break ; its leaves and leaf-fialks were collapfed as in its mofl: profound fleep, and on expofing it to the light, above twenty minutes pa!Ted bf'fore the plant was thoroughly awake and had quite expanded itfelf. During the night the upper or fmoother furfaces of the leaves are appre!Ted together; this would feem to lhew that the office of this furface of the leaf was to cxpofe the fluids of the plant to the light as well as to the air. See note on Helianthus. Many flowers clofc up their petals during the night. See note on vegetable rcfpiration in Part I. [ 33 ] So turns the needle to the pole it loves, With fine librations quivering, as it moves. All wan and fhivering in the leaflefs glade The fad ANEMONE reclin' d her head; Grief on her cheeks had paled the rofeate hue, And her fweet eye-lids dropp'd with pearly dew. 320 -" See, from bright regions, borne on odorous gales " The Swallow, herald of the fummer, fails; Antmone. I. 318. Many males, many females. Pliny fays this flower never opens its petals but when the wind blows; whence its name: it has properly no calyx, but two or three fets of petals, three in each fet, which are folded over the fiamens and pifl:il in a fingular and beautiful manner, and differs alfo from ranunculus in not having a melliferous pore on the claw of each petal. 'The Swallow. 1. 322. There is a wonderful conformity between the vegetation of fome plants, and the arrival of certain birds of pa!Tage. Linneus obferves that the wood anemone blows in Sweden on the arrival of the fwallow; and the marfh mary-gold, Caltha, when the cuckoo fings. Near the fame coincidence was obferved in England by Stillingfleet. The word Coccux in Greek fignifies both a young fig and a cuckoo, which is fuppofed to have arifcn from the coincidence of their appearance in Greece. Perhaps a fimilar coincidence of appearance in fome part of Afia gave occafion to the fiory of the love of the rofe and nightingale, fo much celebrated by the eafl:ern poets. See Dianthus. The times however of the appearance of vegetables in the fpring feem occafionally to be influenced by their acquired habits, as well as by their fenfibility to heat: for the roots of potatoes, onions, &c. will germinate with much lefs heat in the fpring than in the autumn ; as is eafily obfervable where thefe roots are Hored for ufe; F |
