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Show [ J68 ] -Fair CHUNDA [miles amid the burning wafie, 3 35 Her brow unturban' d, and her zone unbrac' d; Ten brother-youths with light umbrella's fl1ade, Or fan with bufy hands the panting tnaid ; Loofe wave her locks, difclofing, as they break, The rifing bofom and averted cheek ; 3 40 .clafp'd round her ivory neck with fiuds of gold Flows her thin vefi in tnany a gauzy fold ; 0' er her light litnbs the ditn tranfparence plays, And the fair form, it feetns to hide, betrays. Chunda, 1. 335. Chund ~li Borrum is the name which the natives give to this plant ; it is the H cdyfarum gyrans, or moving plant; its clafs is two brotherhoods, ten males. Its leaves are continually in fpontaneous motion; fome rifing and others falling; and others whirling circularly by twi!ling their flems; this fpontaneous movement of the ]eaves, when the air is quite flill and very warm, feerns to be necetTary to the pbnt, as perpetml refpiration is to animal life. A more particular account with a good print of the Hedyfarum gyrans is given by M. Brou!fonet in a paper on vegetable motions in the Hifl:oire de l'Acadcmie des Sciences. Ann. q8.j.. p. 6o9. There arc many other infl:ances of fpontaneous movements of the parts of vegetables. In the Marchantia polymorpha fome yellow wool proceeds from the flower-bearing anthers, which moves fpontaneoufly in the anther, while it drops its dufl: like atoms. Murray, Syfl:. Veg. See note on Collinfonia for other in!lances of vegetable fpontaneity. Add to this, that as the fleep of animals confifl: in a fufpenfion of voluntary motion, and as vegetables are likewife fubjeCt to fleep, there is reafon to conclude, that the various actions of opening and clofing their petals and foliage may be jufl:ly afcribed to a voluntary power: for without the faculty of volition, lleep would .not have been necetTary to them. |
