Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/33

 Rh familiar application of its fate to that of human life and beauty, is not more striking to the imagination than philosophically and literally true. The sensitive plant is a more astonishing example of the capability of vegetables to be acted upon as living bodies. Other instances of the same kind we shall hereafter have occasion to mention.

The spontaneous movements of plants are almost as readily to be observed as their living principle. The general direction of their branches, and especially of the upper surface of their leaves, though repeatedly disturbed, to the light; the unfolding and closing of their flowers at stated times, or according to favourable or unfavourable circumstances, with some still more curious particulars to be explained in the sequel of this work, are actions undoubtedly depending on their vital principle, and are performed with the greater facility in proportion as that principle is in its greatest vigour. Hence arises a question whether Vegetables are endowed with sensation. As they possess life, irritability and motion, spontaneously directing their organs to what is natural and