Curious Plant near the Cape of Good Hope - The Mandrake - Changeable Flower - Chinese Method of Preparing Tea - Antiquity of Sugar - Curious Effects of Cinchona, or Peruvian hark - Curious Particulars of a Pound Weight of Cotton" wool - Animated Stalk - Animal Flower.

"Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints."

Curious Plant near the Cape of Good Hope.

The following account of a curious plant is taken from Thunberg's Travels :"The fruit of a species of Mesembryan Thermum, (says the writer,) was sometimes brought to the tavern as a rarity, and was called Rosa de Jericho. When it is put into water, it gradually opens all its seed-vessels, and exactly resembles a sun ; and when it becomes dry again, it contracts itself, and closes by degrees. This is a no less necessary than singular property, which points out the admirable institution of an all-wise Creator; inasmuch as this plant, which is found in the most arid plains, keeps its seeds fast locked up in time of drought, but when the rainy season comes, and the seeds cap grow, it opens its receptacles, and lets fall the seeds, in order that they may be dispersed abroad. The water in which this fruit has lain, is sometimes given to women that are near their time, and is thought to procure them an easy deli-very."