{"id":516,"date":"2011-06-10T15:48:35","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T15:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/?p=516"},"modified":"2011-08-09T18:53:04","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T18:53:04","slug":"mimosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/2011\/06\/10\/mimosa\/","title":{"rendered":"Mimosa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mimosa branch, German print (1745)<\/p><\/div>\n

Percy Shelley’s <\/span><\/strong>poem “The Sensitive Plant”<\/a><\/span><\/strong> is based on a natural history specimen, a member of the mimosa family.\u00a0 In Shelley’s poem the plant is personified in a powerfully anthropomorphic way:
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
\nAnd the young winds fed it with silver dew,
\nAnd it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.
\nAnd closed them beneath the kisses of Night.<\/p>\n

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5
\nLike the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
\nAnd each flower and herb on Earth\u2019s dark breast
\nRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.<\/p>\n

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
\nIn the garden, the field, or the wilderness,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 10
\nLike a doe in the noontide with love\u2019s sweet want,
\nAs the companionless Sensitive Plant.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Part I)<\/p>\n

Shelley concludes by claiming that the naturalsitic beauties of nature (like the products of the imagination) produce a more likely and more satisfying version of immortality (“a modest creed”) than the Judeo-Christian idea of heaven:<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a modest creed, and yet
\nPleasant if one considers it,
\nTo own that death itself must be,
\nLike all the rest, a mockery.<\/p>\n

That garden sweet, that lady fair,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 130
\nAnd all sweet shapes and odours there,
\nIn truth have never passed away:
\n\u2019Tis we, \u2019tis ours, are changed; not they.<\/p>\n

For love, and beauty, and delight,
\nThere is no death nor change: their might\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 135
\nExceeds our organs, which endure
\nNo light, being themselves obscure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (“Conclusion”)<\/p>\n

Here are Charles Darwin’s grandfather and others commenting on these strangely sensitve plants, which close their leaves when darkness falls, when they are blown about by the wind, or when they are touched by a flying insect or human hand:<\/p>\n

“Mimosa. The Sensitive Plant”<\/strong>: “Of the class Polygamy, one house. Naturalists have not explained the immediate cause of the collapsing of the sensitive plant” (E. Darwin, Botanic Garden<\/em>, “Loves of the Plants,” note I, 29). <><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Of Vegetable Animation”<\/strong>: “The fibres of the vegetable world, as well as those of the animal, are excitable into a variety of motions by irritations of external objects. This appears particularly in the mimosa or sensitive plant, whose leaves contract on the slightest injury” (E. Darwin, Zoonomia<\/em> I, 73)<\/p>\n

John Lindsay, “An Inquiry into the Nature of the motions of the Sensitive, Sleeping, and Moving Plants, Jamaica, July 1790, Letters and Papers of the Royal Society<\/em>, 89. “An Inquiry into the nature of the motions of the Mimosa Pudica or Sensitive Plant,” Jamaica July 1788, ibid., 85.<\/p>\n

John Ellis, “A botanical description of the Dionaea muscipula, or Venus’s fly trap<\/a>. A newly discovered sensitive plant: in a letter to Sir Charles Linnaeus” (London, 1770)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Percy Shelley’s poem “The Sensitive Plant” is based on a natural history specimen, a member of the mimosa family.\u00a0 In Shelley’s poem the plant is personified in a powerfully anthropomorphic way: A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":823,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33105],"tags":[33140,33194,25674,33144],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-more-topics","tag-botany","tag-exploration","tag-flowers","tag-sensitive-plant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/romnat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}