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From the midst of its great floating leaves, which are two feet or more in diameter, rise two large leaves borne upon stout foot-stalks that bring them a yard above the water; from between these elevated leaves rises to a still greater height the stem of the flower.
The Digitalis is prepared by collecting the leaves in the summer, and stripping them off from the foot-stalks; these should be then carefully exposed to a slow heat, and the watery extract slowly thrown off; in which they should not be exposed to any great degree of heat, which by its action will deprive them of their fine green colour.
Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air. This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to run away.
It has a soft, indented stem, which runs up quite straight to a height of from 15 to 30 feet, and is crowned by a profusion of large, deeply indented leaves, with long foot-stalks, and among, as well as considerably below these, are the flowers or the fruit, in all stages of development. This, when ripe, is bright yellow, and the size of a musk melon.
Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of the sensitive plant; the leaves meet and close in the night during the sleep of the plant, or when exposed to much cold in the day-time, in the same manner as when they are affected by external violence, folding their upper surfaces together, and in part over each other like scales or tiles; so as to expose as little of the upper surface as may be to the air; but do not indeed collapse quite so far, since I have found, when touched in the night during their sleep, they fall still further; especially when touched on the foot-stalks between the stems and the leaflets, which seems to be their most sensitive or irritable part.
Other kinds of vegetables require a certain degree of fermentation, as Tobacco. The prinicpal art of preserving it consists in this operation being duly performed; for which purpose, as soon as the leaves of the herb are fit, the foot-stalks are broken, and the leaves left on, in order for the moisture in part to be evaporated.
The flowers are white, standing on single foot-stalks, of the shape of a Stramonium, but divided into 4 points only, as is the perianthium. Fucus ex Nova Guinea uva marina dictus, foliis variis.
They do not act in the same unvarying manner in all cases, as do most of the lower animals; for instance, they do not drag in leaves by their foot-stalks, unless the basal part of the blade is as narrow as the apex, or narrower than it.
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