I have observed corollas containing seven, and even eight stamens, growing on the same branch with corollas having only their usual number of six. Lizards, serpents, lobsters, and some insects, have no apparent organs of generation: they are, therefore, supposed to have the wonderful faculty of impregnating themselves. In this they bear some affinity with the attica-tree of Ceylon, which produces fruit from the trunk and branches without flowering. The cryptogamia class of plants, also, entirely conceal their fructification. Indeed it is impossible to determine where the separate species of life and being begin and terminate. I am persuaded that even the hairs of the head, and other parts of the frame, are animals distinct from, though growing out of the body. They have roots like the bulbs of plants; and, being nourished by the blood vessels, as vegetables are nourished by the earth, they have sometimes grown, as Malpighi confesses, so thick and strong as to exude blood. The hair of the tails of horses even acquire voluntary motion, after being for some time emerged in water. I am persuaded, also, that every stamen, every pistyl, every petal, and every leaf, however small, and however large, are distinct beings from each other: though of the same nature. The corolla of a flower is a collection of petals, forming a house for the males and the females: they all rise and have their being from one seed; but the seed, from which they rise, contains in its embryo the rudiments of every portion of the future plant. VOL. III. VII. Whether minerals grow and propagate has not been ascertained, either in the negative or in the affirmative. Signor di Gimbernat has discovered lately in the thermal waters of Baden and Ischia, a substance, similar to skin and flesh: he calls it zoogene; being a species of mineral animal matter. Future investigation will lead to some important results, in respect to the connection, which this substance has with the kingdom of nature. Indeed, wonderful discoveries are yet in store for learned men since potash has been discovered in gehlente, needle stone, and datolite; all of which yield a transparent jelly, when acted upon by acids. Tournefort believed that minerals emanated from seeds, as plants do and the Otaheitans once were so extravagant as to think, that rocks were male and female, and begat soil. Milton, in the range of his vivid imagination, imparts the sexual properties even to the particles of light'. Globes, also, have been said to be animated bodies; whence have emanated planets and satellites, as stars issue out of rockets, when let off in a serene atmosphere. Upon this principle the sun itself is an animal. These ideas, however, must, for the present, be esteemed poctical. If minerals grow, they grow differently from plants; as well as from all other organized bodies. 4 If nature has her resemblances, she has also her anomalies. The naked eye can discern in truffles 1 B. viii. 1. 150. neither root, stem, leaves, flower, nor fruit. The osyris japonica' has flowers upon the middle of its leaves: club-moss has two kinds of seeds growing on the same plant and the same has been supposed to be the case in the genera fucus and conferva. These are wonderful phenomena! They were first observed by Dilleneius; and their separate germinations were afterwards described by Brotero. The parasitical epidendrum monile' lives years with only the imbibings of rain and dew. It does not fasten its roots in the ground; and is, therefore, frequently hung upon pegs. Some plants of the desert have been taken up, and kept without moisture even for three years; and yet have vegetated3. The phoke' of the Caubul deserts has flowers, but no leaves; its branches are green, and run into twigs, terminating in branches; soft and full of sap. Camels are partial to it. It is remarkable, that in Asia and Africa, where grass will not grow, the most beautiful flowers and shrubs flourish luxuriantly. In Australia, where vegetable and mineral productions run in veins nearly north and south, timber degenerates as the land improves; and the most nourishing of all vegetables in the range of the Arctic circle grows best in sterile places. The "king of Candia" has red clusters of flowers, which grow close to the ground. Before these clusters unfold, the leaves wither, and do not Thunberg, vol. iii. 161. 3 Ibid. vol. iv. 269. 5 Oxley, p. 268, 4to. 2 Ibid. p. 212. 4 Elphinstone, p. 4, 4to. 6 Lichen rangeferinus, Flor. Jap. 332 7 Hemanthus Coccineus. renew till the fruit falls. In all countries where the champaka1 grows, its colour is yellow; except in Sumatra, where it is blue. This exception is so remarkable, that the Bramins believe that it once grew in Paradise. On the banks of the Ganges, near Hurdwar, is a grass, which, when trampled upon, diffuses a grateful perfume; and in the territory of Istakhar there is said to be an apple, one half of which is sour, and the other sweet. These instances are very remarkable; but in the olive and potatoe are peculiarities still more curious. The olive is propagated by cuttings, and by procuring wild plants from the woods. It will not grow from the seed, unless it first passes through the intestines of some bird, which divests it of those oily particles, which prevent water penetrating it and causing the kernel to expand. The same effect may, probably, be produced by macerating the seed in an alkaline lixivium. In respect to the potatoe, what can be more curious in fecundation, than the circumstance, that when this plant is propagated by cuttings, those cuttings will produce roots of the same quality; but when it is propagated by seed, scarcely two roots resemble each other in form, in size, colour, or flavour. In animated beings, too, it is not incurious to remark one or two of those peculiarities, which exemplify the boundless variety of Nature. The eggs of poultry, near Oojain in thé Mahratta states, frequently contain two yolks : their bones, too, are black; while in Europe they are Marsden, Sumatra. 2 Jones on the Ancient Spikenard. white, and in Malabar red. In London may, at this moment, be seen a redbreast with red eyes, yellow bill and legs, white feathers, and white claws. The species of colymbus, known in Sweden by the name of the lomm', has feet; but as they are turned towards the tail, it is unable to walk. In the genus lytta, the Spanish female fly courts the male; and usurps the station in fecundation, which, in other animals, is usurped by the male. This is, I believe, the only instance of the kind, that has yet been obseryed in natural economy. In minerals many anomalies and resemblances have, also, been observed. The vinegar-stone attracts vinegar, yet cannot remain in it and there is a stone which may be set on fire by water, and extinguished by oil: but as an analogy between vegetables and minerals is indicated by some remarkable coincidences, observable in the effects of metallic and vegetable galvanic batteries3, future experience will probably account for those remarkable peculiarities, which at present baffle the subtlety of the human mind. How many species of sensation Nature has created, it were impossible even to conjecture : but, by all the rules of analogy, it is evident that there are at least three; the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal. These species are subdivided into orders; each of which are experienced in regular gradation, according to the body to which 1 Clarke, Scandinavia, 310. 2 Scheffer de Avibus, 349. |