Mimosa
(from mimos, a mimic; the leaves of many of the species mimic animal sensibility). Sensitive Plant. ORD. Leguminosoe. This genus, as now understood, comprises about 230 species of herbs, rarely tall climbing shrubs, or unarmed or prickly trees, natives, for the most part, of the warmer parts of America, a few inhabiting tropical Africa and the East Indies, but none are yet known from Australia. Flowers small, sessile, in globose heads or cylindrical spikes; peduncles axillary, solitary, or fasciculate. Leaves bipinnate, often sensitive, with one or more pairs of pinnae, each pinna bearing two or more pairs of leaflets. Mimosas thrive in a compost of loam and peat, in equal proportions, to which a small portion of sand may be added. Propagated by seeds, sown, during spring, in a hotbed; or by cuttings of rather firm young shoots, inserted in sandy soil, in heat. The species commonly known as the "Sensitive Plant" is M. pudica, whereas the true one is M. sensitiva. M. pudica is usually treated as an annual, but, under stove treatment, it assumes a perennial character.
M. marginata (margined).* fl. in purplish heads on peduncles at least twice as long as the leaves. Summer. l. pinnate; leaflets with ciliated margins. Extra-tropical South America. A handsome prostrate shrub, producing long slender shoots, which have an elegant appearance, if allowed to hang down from the rafters of a conservatory.
M. pudica (chaste).* Humble Plant. fl. red. Summer. l. somewhat digitately pinnate, with four pinnae, each pinna bearing many pairs of linear leaflets. Stem herbaceous, prickly, with the petioles and peduncles more or less beset with stiff hairs or bristles. h. 1ft. Tropical America (naturalised in many parts of tropical Africa and Asia), 1638. A well-known plant, even more sensitive than the true M. sensitiva. (A. B. R. 544.)
M. scandens (climbing). A synonym of Entada scandens.
M. sensitiva (sensitive). fl. purple. Summer. l., leaflets ovate, acute, clothed with adpressed hairs beneath, but glabrous above, not so sensitive to the touch as those of M. pudica. Stem and petioles prickly. h. 3ft. to 6ft. Tropical America, 1648. An evergreen shrub. (B. R. 25.)