sensitiveness (sensitivnes)

The property or character of being sensitive; especially, tendency or disposition to be easily influenced or affected by external objects, events, or circumstances: as, abnormal sensitivene ; the sen sitivene of a balance or some fine mechanism. Parts of the body which lose all sensitivene come to be regarded as external things. G. T. Ladd , Physiol. Psychology, p. 401. sensitive-plant (sen'si-tiv-plant), n. The tropical and greenhouse plant Mimosa pudic a ; the humble-plant. It is mechanically irritable in a higher degree than almost any other plant. The leaves are bipinnate, the very numerous linear leaflets ranked on two pairs of branches which are inserted close to the end of the common petiole, thus appearing digitate. At night each leaf curves downward and the leaflets fold together, and in the daytime a slight touch causes them to a ume the same position. It has purple flowers in heads on long peduncles. It is widely diffused through the tropics, native at least in South America and naturalized in the southern United States. The name is extended to other sensitive mimosas, as M. sensitiva , which is irritable in a le degree, and sometimes to the whole genus. - Bastard sensitive-plant, Eschynomene American a. [West Indies.]-Wild sensitive-plant. ( a ) Mimosa strigil los a of the southern border of the United States. (b) Same as sensitive pea (which see, under peal ).