THAT branch of natural history which relates to vegetables has been called BOTANY, from botane, a plant or herb; and PHYTOLOGY, from phyton, a plant, and logos, a discourse. It treats of their structure and functions, the systematical arrangement and denomination of their several kinds, and their peculiar properties and uses. Were all the known objects diffused over the surface of this earth submitted to the examination of a certain number of individuals accustomed to nice and patient investigation, but altogether ignorant of any arrangement hitherto proposed, there can be but little doubt that the same classification would be adopted by all; and that the objects would be divided into three grand assemblages, namely, minerals, plants, and animals ; such being, in fact, for the purposes of description, at least, the most convenient distribution that could be adopted. Thus there is no difficulty in distinguishing this mineral body from that plant, or this plant from a horse, an elephant, or any other quadruped. Yet, when we come to examine the confines of these several kingdoms of nature, we find that so nice are the shades and gradations, and so gradual the transitions from one class of bodies to the other, that objects frequently present themselves, to which it would be difficult to assign their proper compart

ment.

However striking, therefore, the distinctions between animal and vegetable life, in their more perfect and elaborate forms, as we approach the contiguous extremities of the two kingdoms, we find these distinctions fading away so gradually,

Shade unperceived, so softening into shade,

and the mutual advances so close and intimate, that it becomes a task of no common difficulty to draw a line of distinction between them, and determine to which of them an individual may belong.

The structure of vegetables is truly wonderful, and demands our admiring attention. How excellently adapted are the roots for taking hold of their parent earth, as well as for drawing nourishment for the support of the plant, and imbibing moisture from the neighboring soil! How commodiously are the various tubes and fibres composing the trunk or stalk arranged for the motion of the sap upwards, to all the extremities of the leaves and branches! How nicely are the leaves formed for the important services they are made to yield in the economy of vegetation! What an excellent clothing does the bark afford, not only for protecting the stem and branches from external injury, but from the hurtful extremes of

heat and cold! What evident marks of wisdom and design do the flowers evince in their beautiul and delicate construction; how nicely are they formed for the protection and nourishment of the first and tender rudiments of the fruit, and when it has attained more firmness and solidity, how readily do they relinquish their charge, and drop off in decay, when no longer necessary! How wonderfully does the fruit, in some classes, envelope and protect the seed till it has arrived at maturity; and lastly, what a passing strange piece of organized mechanism is the seed itself, and, being necessary for the reproduction of its species, what a remarkable provision is made for its preservation and succession! What but the wisdom of a Deity could have devised, that those seeds which are most exposed to the ravages of the inhabitants of the forest should be not only doubly, but some of them trebly enclosed; that those inost in request as articles of food, should be so hardy and so abundantly prolific; and that seeds in general, which are the sport of so many casualties, and exposed to injury from such a variety of accidents, should be possessed of a principle of lasting vitality, which makes it indeed no easy matter to deprive them of their fructifying power! Plants are also multiplied and propagated by a variety of ways, which strengthen the provision made for their succession.

Nor is the finger of Providence less visible in the means for diffusing or spreading abroad vegetables, than in the provision made for keeping up their succession. The earth may be said to be full of the goodness of the Lord; but how comes it to pass, that in parts untrod by man, and on the tops of ruinous buildings, so many varied specimens of the vegetable creation are to be found? Is it not from the manner in which nature's great Husbandman scatters his seeds about? While the seeds of some plants are made sufficiently heavy to fall down and take up their abode near the place of their nativity; and others, after having been swallowed up by quadrupeds, are deposited in the neighboring soil; some are carried by the fowls of the air to places more remote, or, being furnished with a soft plumage, are borne on the winds of heaven to the situations allotted for them. To prevent some from pitching too near, they are wrapped up in elastic cases, which, bursting when fully ripe, the prisoners fly abroad in all directions. To prevent others from straying too far, they are furnished with a kind of grappling hooks, that arrest them in their flight, and attach them to the spot most congenial to their growth. These are some of the doings of the Lord, and are wondrous in our eyes!

In the construction of plants we observe a considerable difference in the consistence of the three classes. Compared with the shrubby race, how hard, firm, and tenacious is the trunk of the majestic oak; and, compared with the herbaceous tribe, how woody, tough, and elastic is the hawthorn twig! But for this, how could the mighty monarch of the wood have been able to withstand the fury of the tempest? While the more humble and lowly

shrubs stand not in need of such firmness of texture, their pliability and elastic toughness, together with the prickly coat of mail by which they are enveloped, render them less susceptible of injury in their exposed situation.

Softness, united with a still greater degree of flexibility, are the distinguishing characteristics of the herbaceous order; and how wisely has this been ordered for the various purposes for which they were created! With the firmness of trees, to what a prickly stubble must nature's soft and downy carpet have given way! With the tenacity of shrubs, how would it have answered as food for our cattle?

There are, besides, a number of other properties and peculiarities in the vegetable kingdom, in which the wonderful working of the Divinity shines pre-eminent. How strange, for instance, that if a seed is sown in a reversed position, the young root turns of itself downwards, while the stem refuses to sink deeper in the soil, and bends itself round to shoot up through the surface of the earth! How surprising, that when the roots of a tree or a plant meet with a stone or other interruption in their progress under ground, they change their direction, and avoid it! How amazing, that the numerous shoots which branch out from the root in quest of moisture, pursue, as it were by instinct, the track that leads to it-turn from a barren to a more fertile soil; and that plants shut up in a darksome room, bend or creep to any aperture through which the rays of light may be admitted!

In these respects, the vegetable tribes may be said to possess something analogous to animal life; but here the resemblance does not stop. How surprising the phenomenon of what is called the sleep of plants, and the sexual system of Linnæus, founded on the discovery that there exists in the vegetable, as well as in the animal kingdom, a distinction of sexes.

What amazing variety of size, of shape, and of hue, do we discover among this multitudinous order of things! What different properties do some possess from others; and what a near approach do a few make to that superior order immediately above them, in the scale of existence! The sensitive plant, when slightly touched, evinces something like the timidity of our harmless animals; the hedysarum gyrans, or moving plant of the East, exhibits an incessant and spontaneous movement of its leaves during the day, in warm and clear weather; but in the night season, and in the absence of light and heat, its motions cease, and it remains, as it were, in a state of quiescence! The American Venus' flytrap, like an animal of prey, seems to lie in wait to catch the unwary insect.

Plants, nevertheless, do not appear to have the smallest basis for sensation, admitting that sensation is the result of a nervous system; and we are not acquainted with any other source from which it can proceed. Yet, although the vessels of plants do not appear to possess any muscular fibres, we have evident proofs of the existence of a contractile and irritable power from some other princi

ple; and the facts above referred to, among many others that might be adduced, concur in making it highly probable, that it is by the exercise of such a principle that the different fluids are propelled through their respective vessels. There is no other method by which such propulsion can be reasonably accounted for.

In what part of a plant the vital principle chiefly exists, or to what quarter it retires during the winter, we know not; but we are just as ignorant in respect to animal life. In both it operates towards every point; it consists in the whole, and resides in the whole; and its proof of existence is drawn from its exercising almost every one of its functions, and effecting its combinations in direct opposition to the laws of chemical affinity, which would otherwise as much control it as they control the mineral world, and which constantly assume an authority as soon as ever the vegetable is dead. Hence, the plant thrives and increases in its bulk, puts forth annually a new progeny of buds, and becomes clothed with a beautiful foliage of lungs (every leaf being a distinct lung in itself), for the respiration of the rising brood; and with an harmonious circle of action, that can never be too much admired, furnishes a perpetual supply of nutriment, in every diversified form, for the growth and perfection of animal life; while it receives in rich abundance, from the waste and diminution, and even decomposition of the same, the means of new births, new buds, and new harvests.

Frosts and suns, water and air, equally promote fructification in their respective ways; and the termes or white ant, the mole, the hampster, and the earth-worm, break up the ground, or delve into it, that they may enjoy their salubrious influences. In like manner, they are equally the ministers of putrefaction and decomposition; and liver-worts and fungusses, the ant and the beetle, the dewworm, the ship-worm, and the wood-pecker, contribute to the general effect, and soon reduce the trunks of the stoutest oaks, if lying waste and unemployed, to their elementary principles, so as to form a productive mould for successive progenies of animal or vegetable existence. Such is the simple but beautiful circle of nature. Every thing lives, flourishes, and decays: every thing dies, but nothing is lost; for the great principle of life only changes its form, and the destruction of one generation is the vivification of the next. Hence, the Hindu mythologists, with a force and elegance peculiarly striking, and which are no where to be paralleled in the theogonies of Greece and Rome, describe the Supreme Being, whom they denominate Brahm, as forming and regulating the universe through the agency of a triad of inferior gods, each of whom contributes equally to the general result, under the names of Brahma, Visnu, and Iswara; or the generating power, the preserving or consummating power, and the decomposing power. And hence the Christian philosopher, with a simplicity as much more sublime than the Hindu's as it is more veracious, exclaims, on con