The Repose Of Flowers.


ALMOST all flowers sleep during the night.

The marigold goes to bed with the sun, and

with him rises weeping. Many plants are so

sensitive that their leaves close during the 

passage of a cloud. The dandelion opens at five

or six in the morning and shuts at nine in the

evening. The common daisy shuts up its blossom

in the evening, and opens its "day's-eye "

to meet the early beams of the morning sun.

The crocus, tulip, and many others, close their

blossoms at different hours toward evening.

The ivy-leaved lettuce opens at eight in the

morning, and closes forever at four in the

 afternoon.

It begins to expand its magnificent,

sweet-scented blossom in twilight; it is 

full-blown at midnight, never to open again with

the dawn of day. In a clover field not a leaf

opens until after sunrise. So says a celebrated

English author who has devoted much

time to the study of plants, and often watched

them during their quiet slumbers. Those

plants which seem to be awake all night, he

styles "the bats and owls of the vegetable

kingdom." 





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