THE SLEEP OF THE FLOWERS.



WHAT child has not noticed the closing of the petals in many flowers just as the day closes? In many plants the leaves also fold themselves up with the fading day, and do not awake from their slumber till the morning sun rouses them. Some are so sensitive to the light that they will close with even a passing cloud. The dandelion opens at five in the morning, but is not so early a riser as the goat's-beard, which opens its bright eyes at three o'clock, and goes to sleep again at six in the evening. But there are some flowers, which, like fashionable people, turn night into day. The night-blooming cereus begins to unfold its magnificent sweet-scented blossoms at twilight, is in full bloom at midnight, and sleeps its last sleep with the day dawn. 





S. S. Advocate.