The Botanic Garden, a Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of VegetationDarwin, Erasmus
History
The Botanic Garden, a Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation
Darwin, Erasmus
Natural history; Plants -- Poetry; Portland Vase
Buds set in the ground will grow if prevented from bleeding to death by
a cement; vegetables require no muscles of locomotion, no stomach or
bowels, no general system of veins; they have, 1. Three systems of
absorbent vessels; 2. Two pulmonary systems; 3. Arterial systems; 4.
Glands; 5. Organs of reproduction; 6. muscles. I. Absorbent system
evinced by experiments by coloured absorptions in fig-tree and picris;
called air-vessels erroneously; spiral structure of absorbent vessels;
retrograde motion of them like the throats of cows. II. Pulmonary
arteries in the leaves, and pulmonary veins; no general system of veins
shewn by experiment; no heart; the arteries act like the vena portarum
of the liver; pulmonary system in the petals of flowers; circulation
owing to living irritability; vegetable absorption more powerful than
animal, as in vines; not by capillary attraction.
NOTE XXXVII ... VEGETABLE RESPIRATION.
I. Leaves not perspiratory organs, nor excretory ones; lungs of animals.
1. Great surfaces of leaves. 2. Vegetable blood changes colour in the
leaves; experiment with spurge; with picris. 3. Upper surface of the
leaf only acts as a respiratory organ. 4. Upper surface repels moisture;
leaves laid on water. 5. Leaves killed by oil like insects; muscles at
the foot-stalks of leaves. 6. Use of light to vegetable leaves;
experiments of Priestley, Ingenhouze, and Scheel. 7. Vegetable
circulation similar to that of fish. II. Another pulmonary system
belongs to flowers; colours of flowers. 1. Vascular structure of the
corol. 2. Glands producing honey, wax, &c. perish with the corol. 3.
Many flowers have no green leaves attending them, as Colchicum. 4.
Corols not for the defence of the stamens. 5. Corol of Helleborus Niger
changes to a calyx. 6. Green leaves not necessary to the fruit-bud;
green leaves of Colchicum belong to the new bulb not to the flower. 7.
Flower-bud after the corol falls is simply an uterus; mature flowers not
injured by taking of the green leaves. 8. Inosculation of vegetable
vessels.
NOTE XXXVIII ... VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION.
Seeds in broom discovered twenty days before the flower opens; progress
of the seed after impregnation; seeds exist before fecundation; analogy
between seeds and eggs; progress of the egg within the hen; spawn of
frogs and of fish; male Salamander; marine plants project a liquor not a
powder; seminal fluid diluted with water, if a stimulus only? Male and
female influence necessary in animals, insects, and vegetables, both in
production of seeds and buds; does the embryon seed produce the
surrounding fruit, like insects in gall-nuts?
NOTE XXXIX ... VEGETABLE GLANDULATION.
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