FOOTNOTES:
[6] The weeping willow is less luxuriant in this climate than in latitude 40°. It is not however cultivated in this state as it is in Pennsylvania, where it arrives at the greatest perfection. There is a willow which grows on the banks of the Mississippi, whose roots become as dry as tinder, after the periodical swell has subsided, but which vegetates afresh as soon as it is watered by the next inundation. This property of dying and returning again to vegetative existence, is not peculiar to this willow; other plants possess the same singular property, though this exceeds all others in magnitude. The plants of that description known to botanists, are all water mosses except two species of ducksmeat—the "lemna minor" and the "lemna gibba." These are but minute vegetables floating on the surface of stagnant water, without taking root in the pond. They may be dried in the hot sun and then kept in a deal box for two or three years, after which they will revive, if placed in spring, river or rain water. There is at the north a kind of natural paper, resembling the coats or strata of a wasp's nest in colour and consistency, which is formed of the sediment of ponds, that become dry in hot weather. If a piece of this paper-like substance be put in a glass of fresh water and exposed to light, it loses its dirty-white colour in a few minutes and assumes a lively green. This sudden and unexpected change is occasioned by a number of aquatic mosses, constituting a part of the materials of the paper or sediment in question, and belonging to the genus "Conferra;" for these minute vegetables may be said to be in the state of suspended animation, while they remain dry; but the presence of water restores them to their natural functions by its animating virtue.
So long retaining the principle of life, these curious plants, as well as the two species above mentioned, may be transported to any distant country in a torpid condition, where they might again be animated. The same remark will apply to the Mississippi willow which suggested these observations.
[7] The negro seldom is heard to say "massa;" they generally say master, distinctly.