A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    59/120 (page 49)
    leaves at the approach of night, or when touched by any external object, whence they have at- tained the name of Sensitive Plants. All of them bear pods, like the Pea family; but their blossoms are rather like those of the Willow, consisting of little globes of yellow threads*. Their leaves (when they produce leaves) are always finely divided; often as much so as those of the Carrot, a circumstance which gives to these trees a very peculiar aspect; but a considerable proportion of the Mimosas are, properly speaking, leafless, excepting when very young, or after having been injured. The leaf-stalk, however, remains, and assumes a flat- ted shape, having somewhat of a leaf-life ap- pearance, but differing from a true leaf in its edge being turned towards the stem: its two sides are consequently similar, and perform the same functions with respect to the light. This * It is to this form of the blossom, I apprehend, that the author of Lalla Rookh alludes : “ Our rocks are rough; but smiling there Th1 Acacia waves her yellow hair, Lonely and sweet, nor lov’d the less For fiow’ring in a wilderness.” The name of Acacia is at present given to those species of Mimosa which are not sensitive. D