[Draba.  I. 252.  Alpina.  Alpine Whitlow-grass.  One female and six males.  Four of these males stand above the other two; whence the name of the class “four powers.”  I have observed in several plants of this class, that the two lower males arise, in a few-days after the opening of the flower, to the same height as the other four, not being mature as soon as the higher ones.  See note on Gloriosa.  All the plants of this class possess similar virtues; they are termed acrid and anti corbutic in their raw state, as mustard, watercress; when cultivated and boiled, they become a mild wholesome food, as cabbage, turnep.

There was formerly a Volcano on the Peake of Tenerif, which became extinct about the year 1684.  Philos.  Trans.  In many excavations of the mountain, much below the summit, there is now found abundance of ice at all seasons.  Tench’s Expedition to Botany Bay, p. 12.  Are these congelations in consequence of the daily solution of the hoar-frost which is produced on the summit during the night?]

        Stay, bright inhabitant of air, alight,
260 Ambitious VISCA, from thy eagle-flight!—­
        ——­Scorning the sordid soil, aloft she springs,
        Shakes her white plume, and claps her golden wings;
        High o’er the fields of boundless ether roves,
        And seeks amid the clouds her soaring loves!

265 Stretch’d on her mossy couch, in trackless deeps,
        Queen of the coral groves, ZOSTERA sleeps;

[Viscum. l. 260.  Misletoe.  Two houses.  This plant never grows upon the ground; the foliage is yellow, and the berries milk-white; the berries are so viscous, as to serve for bird-lime; and when they fall, adhere to the branches of the tree, on which the plant grows, and strike root into its bark; or are carried to distant trees by birds.  The Tillandsia, or wild pine, grows on other trees, like the Misletoe, but takes little or no nourishment from them, having large buckets in its leaves to collect and retain the rain water.  See note on Dypsacus.  The mosses, which grow on the bark of trees, take much nourishment from them; hence it is observed that trees, which are annually cleared from moss by a brush, grow nearly twice as fast. (Phil.  Transact.) In the cyder countries the peasants brush their apple-trees annually.]

[Zostera. l. 266.  Grass-wrack.  Class, Feminine Males.  Order, Many Males.  It grows at the bottom of the sea, and rising to the surface, when in flower, covers many leagues; and is driven at length to the shore.  During its time of floating on the sea, numberless animals live on the under surface of it; and being specifically lighter than the sea water, or being repelled by it, have legs placed as it were on their backs for the purpose of walking under it.  As the Scyllcea.  See Barbut’s Genera Vermium.  It seems necessary that the marriages of plants should be celebrated in the open air, either because the powder of the anther, or the mucilage