Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1884 — A Tree of Temper. [ARTICLE]

A Tree of Temper.

Ad “airgry temper,” a species of acacia, is growing on a farm in Virginia, Nevada. It was brought from Australia, and is now eight feet’ high and growing rapidly. It shows all the characteristics of the sensitive plant. When the sun sets its leaves fold together, and the ends of the tender twigs c-Oil up like; a pig-tail. If the twigs are handled tlie leaves move Uneasily for a minute or more. A singular thing concerning the tree was its apparent resentment on being removed from a pot, an which ~it had matured, into a much larger pot. To 'use the gardener’s expression, it “made it very quarters before the leaves began to stand up in all directions, like the hair mad. ” Hardly had it been in its new on the tail of an angry cat, and soon the whole plant ivas in a quiver. At the same time it gave out an odor most pungent and sickening, resembling the odor given off by rattlesnakes and other kinds of snakes when-teased. This odor so filled the house that it ivas necessary to open the windoAvs. It was fully an hour before the plant calmed down and folded its leaves in peace.