Volume Ii Part 4 (1/2)
These observations have been verified by Spallanzani and others. Hence rainy seasons make a scarcity of grain, or hinder its fecundity, by bursting the pollen before it arrives at the moist stigma of the flower.
Spallanzani's Dissertations, v. II. p. 321. Thus the flowers of the male Vallisneria are produced under water, and when ripe detach themselves from the plant, and rising to the surface are wafted by the air to the female flowers. See Vallisneria.]
The silvery sea-weed matted round her bed, And distant surges murmuring o'er her head.-- High in the flood her azure dome ascends, 270 The crystal arch on crystal columns bends; Roof'd with translucent sh.e.l.l the turrets blaze, And far in ocean dart their colour'd rays; O'er the white floor successive shadows move, As rise and break the ruffled waves above.-- 275 Around the nymph her mermaid-trains repair, And weave with orient pearl her radiant hair; With rapid fins she cleaves the watery way, Shoots like a diver meteor up to day; Sounds a loud conch, convokes a scaly band, 280 Her sea-born lovers, and ascends the strand.
E'en round the pole the flames of Love aspire, And icy bosoms feel the _secret_ fire!-- Cradled in snow and fann'd by arctic air s.h.i.+nes, gentle BAROMETZ! thy golden hair; 285 Rooted in earth each cloven hoof descends, And round and round her flexile neck she bends; Crops the grey coral moss, and h.o.a.ry thyme, Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime; Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, 290 Or seems to bleat, a _Vegetable Lamb_.
[_Barometz_. l. 284. Polypodium Barometz. Tartarian Lamb. Clandestine Marriage. This species of Fern is a native of China, with a dec.u.mbent root, thick, and every where covered with the most soft and dense wool, intensely yellow. Lin. Spec. Plant.
This curious stem is sometimes pushed out of the ground in its horizontal situation by some of the inferior branches of the root, so as to give it some resemblance to a Lamb standing on four legs; and has been said to destroy all other plants in its vicinity. Sir Hans Sloane describes it under the name of Tartarian Lamb, and has given a print of it. Philos.
Trans. abridged, v. II. p. 646. but thinks some art had been used to give it an animal appearance. Dr. Hunter, in his edition of the Terra of Evelyn, has given a more curious print of it, much resembling a sheep.
The down is used in India externally for stopping hemorrhages, and is called golden moss.
The thick downy clothing of some vegetables seems designed to protect them from the injuries of cold, like the wool of animals. Those bodies, which are bad conductors of electricity, are also bad conductors of heat, as gla.s.s, wax, air. Hence either of the two former of these may be melted by the flame of a blow-pipe very near the fingers which hold it without burning them; and the last, by being confined on the surface of animal bodies, in the interstices of their fur or wool, prevents the escape of their natural warmth; to which should be added, that the hairs themselves are imperfect conductors. The fat or oil of whales, and other northern animals, seems designed for the same purpose of preventing the too sudden escape of the heat of the body in cold climates. Snow protects vegetables which are covered by it from cold, both because it is a bad conductor of heat itself, and contains much air in its pores. If a piece of camphor be immersed in a snow-ball, except one extremity of it, on setting fire to this, as the snow melts, the water becomes absorbed into the surrounding snow by capillary attraction; on this account, when living animals are buried in snow, they are not moistened by it; but the cavity enlarges as the snow dissolves, affording them both a dry and warm habitation.]
--So, warm and buoyant in his oily mail, Gambols on seas of ice the unwieldy Whale; Wide-waving fins round floating islands urge His bulk gigantic through the troubled surge; 295 With hideous yawn the flying shoals He seeks, Or clasps with fringe of horn his ma.s.sy cheeks; Lifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils bare, And spouts pellucid columns into air; The silvery arches catch the setting beams, 300 And transient rainbows tremble o'er the streams.
Weak with nice sense, the chaste MIMOSA stands, From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands; Oft as light clouds o'er-pa.s.s the Summer-glade, Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade; 305 And feels, alive through all her tender form, The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm; Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night; And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light.
[_Mimosa_. I. 301. The sensitive plant. Of the cla.s.s Polygamy, one house.
Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of the sensitive plant; the leaves meet and close in the night during the sleep of the plant, or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the same manner as when they are affected by external violence, folding their upper surfaces together, and in part over each other like scales or tiles; so as to expose as little of the upper surface as may be to the air; but do not indeed collapse quite so far, since I have found, when touched in the night during their sleep, they fall still further; especially when touched on the foot-stalks between the stems and the leaflets, which seems to be their most sensitive or irritable part. Now as their situation after being exposed to external violence resembles their sleep, but with a greater degree of collapse, may it not be owing to a numbness or paralysis consequent to too violent irritation, like the faintings of animals from pain or fatigue? I kept a sensitive plant in a dark room till some hours after day-break: its leaves and leaf-stalks were collapsed as in its most profound sleep, and on exposing it to the light, above twenty minutes pa.s.sed before the plant was thoroughly awake and had quite expanded itself. During the night the upper or smoother surfaces of the leaves are appressed together; this would seem to shew that the office of this surface of the leaf was to expose the fluids of the plant to the light as well as to the air. See note on Helianthus.
Many flowers close up their petals during the night. See note on vegetable respiration in Part I.]
Veil'd, with gay decency and modest pride, 310 Slow to the mosque she moves, an eastern bride; There her soft vows unceasing love record, Queen of the bright seraglio of her Lord.-- So sinks or rises with the changeful hour The liquid silver in its gla.s.sy tower.
315 So turns the needle to the pole it loves, With fine librations quivering as it moves.
All wan and s.h.i.+vering in the leafless glade The sad ANEMONE reclined her head; Grief on her cheeks had paled the roseate hue, 320 And her sweet eye-lids dropp'd with pearly dew.
--”See, from bright regions, borne on odorous gales The Swallow, herald of the summer, sails;
[_Anemone_. l. 318. Many males, many females. Pliny says this flower never opens its petals but when the wind blows; whence its name: it has properly no calix, but two or three sets of petals, three in each set, which are folded over the stamens and pistil in a singular and beautiful manner, and differs also from ranunculus in not having a melliferous pore on the claw of each petal. ]
[_The Swallow_. l. 322. There is a wonderful conformity between the vegetation of some plants, and the arrival of certain birds of pa.s.sage.
Linneus observes that the wood anemone blows in Sweden on the arrival of the swallow; and the marsh mary-gold, Caltha, when the cuckoo sings.
Near the same coincidence was observed in England by Stillingfleet. The word Coccux in Greek signifies both a young fig and a cuckoo, which is supposed to have arisen from the coincidence of their appearance in Greece.
Perhaps a similar coincidence of appearance in some parts of Asia gave occasion to the story of the loves of the rose and nightingale, so much celebrated by the eastern poets. See Dianthus. The times however of the appearance of vegetables in the spring seem occasionally to be influenced by their acquired habits, as well as by their sensibility to heat: for the roots of potatoes, onions, &c. will germinate with much less heat in the spring than in the autumn; as is easily observable where these roots are stored for use; and hence malt is best made in the spring. 2d. The grains and roots brought from more southern lat.i.tudes germinate here sooner than those which are brought from more northern ones, owing to their acquired habits. Fordyce on Agriculture. 3d. It was observed by one of the scholars of Linneus, that the apple-trees sent from hence to New England blossomed for a few years too early for that climate, and bore no fruit; but afterwards learnt to accommodate themselves to their new situation.
(Kalm's Travels.) 4th. The parts of animals become more sensible to heat after having been previously exposed to cold, as our hands glow on coming into the house after having held snow in them; this seems to happen to vegetables; for vines in grape-houses, which have been exposed to the winter's cold, will become forwarder and more vigorous than those which have been kept during the winter in the house. (Kenedy on Gardening.) This accounts for the very rapid vegetation in the northern lat.i.tudes after the solution of the snows.
The increase of the irritability of plants in respect to heat, after having been previously exposed to cold, is further ill.u.s.trated by an experiment of Dr. Walker's. He cut apertures into a birch-tree at different heights; and on the 26th of March some of these apertures bled, or oozed with the sap-juice, when the thermometer was at 39; which same apertures did not bleed on the 13th of March, when the thermometer was at 44. The reason of this I apprehend was, because on the night of the 25th the thermometer was as low as 34; whereas on the night of the 12th it was at 41; though the ingenious author ascribes it to another cause. Trans.
of Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, v. 1. p. 19.]
”Breathe, gentle AIR! from cherub-lips impart Thy balmy influence to my anguish'd heart; 325 Thou, whose soft voice calls forth the tender blooms, Whose pencil paints them, and whose breath perfumes; O chase the Fiend of Frost, with leaden mace Who seals in death-like sleep my hapless race; Melt his hard heart, release his iron hand, 330 And give my ivory petals to expand.