I :
k' I ^
T
T O FA C E PAGE I 2 I . ]
6 i i a r o m e t z , ot* ^^ eg e^'a6F e IscLmR,
From Zahn*s ^ Speculie Physico-Mathematico-Historiccef
©JaSuFou/ p F a n i^ , 12 r
very leaves, remarks, as though he had been an eye-witness, that
they walk, and march away without further ado if anyone attempts
to touch them. Bauhin, after describing these wonderful leaves
as being very like Mulberry-leaves, but with two short and
pointed feet on each side, rernarks upon the great prodigy of the
lea,f of a tree being changed into an animal, obtaining sense, and
being capable of progressive motion.
Kircher records that in his time a tree was said to exist in Chili,
the leaves of which produced worms ; upon arriving at maturity’
these worms crawled to the edge of the leaf, and thence fell to the
earth, where after a time they became changed into serpents, which
over-ran the whole land. Kircher endeavours to explain this
story of the serpent-bearing tree, by giving, as a reason for the
phenomenon, that the tree attached to itself, through its roots,
moisture pregnant with the seed of serpents. Through the action
of the sun’s rays, and the moisture of the tree, this serpent-spawn
degenerates into worms, which by contaffi with the earth become
converted into living serpents.
The same authority states that in the Molucca islands, but
more particularly in Ternate, not far from the castle of the same
name, there grew a plant which he describes as having small
le j e s . To this plant the natives gave the name of Catopa, because
when Its leaves fall off they at once become changed into butterflies.
Doaor Darwin, in his botanical poem called ‘ The Loves of
the Plants,’ thus apostrophises an extraordinary animal-bearing
p lan t:—
“ Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air.
Shines, gentle Barometz ! thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends;
Crops the gray coral-moss and hoary Thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime.
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a vegetable Lamb.”
In the curious frontispiece to Parkinson’s ‘ Paradisus,’ which
will be found reproduced at the commencement of this work, it will
be noticed that the Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb, is represented
as one of the plants growing in Eden. In Zahn’s SpeculcB Physico-
Mathematico-HistonccE (1696) is given a figure of this plant, accompanied
by a description, of which the following is a translation:__
“ Very wonderful is the Tartarian shrub or plant which'the
natives call Boromez, i.e., Lamb. It grows like a lamb to about the
height of three feet. It resembles a lamb in feet, in hoofs, in ears,
and in the whole head, save the horns. - For horns, it possesses
tufts of hair, resembling a horn in appearance. It is covered with
the thinnest bark, which is taken off and used by the inhabitants
for the protection of their heads. They say that the inner pulp
resembles lobster-flesh, and that blood flows from it when it is
wounded. Its root projects and rises to the umbilicus. What
- !
n n