TO FACE [PAGE 121].]
The Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb.
From Zahn’s ‘Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ.’
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 contact 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 leaves. To this plant the natives gave the name of Catopa, because when its leaves fall off they at once become changed into butterflies.
Doctor Darwin, in his botanical poem called ‘The Loves of the Plants,’ thus apostrophises an extraordinary animal-bearing plant:—
“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;