84 CLASSICS OF MODERN SCIENCE 

 evening it is closely shut up, and withdrawn again ; for about four 

 o'clock in the afternoon the flower closes, and remains all night under 

 water; which was observed full two thousand years since, even as 

 long ago as the time of Theophrastus, who has described this circum- 

 stance in the Nymphaea Lotus, a plant so much resembling our 

 white water-lily that they are only distinguished from each other by 

 the leaves of the Lotus being indented. Theophrastus gives the 

 following account of this vegetable, in his History of Plants, 

 book IV., chap. lo: *'It is said to withdraw its flowers into the 

 Euphrates, which continue to descend till midnight, to so great a 

 depth that at daybreak they are out of reach of the hand; after 

 which it rises again, and in the course of the morning appears above 

 the water, and expands its flowers, rising higher and higher, till it 

 is a considerable height above the surface." The very same thing 

 may be observed in the Nymphaea alba. 



Many flowers close themselves in the evening and before rain, lest 

 the pollen should be coagulated ; but after the discharge of the 

 pollen they always remain open. Such of them as do not shut up, 

 incline their flowers downward in those circumstances, and several 

 flowers, which come forth in the moisture of spring, droop perpet- 

 ually. The manner in which the Parnassia and Saxifrage move their 

 antherae to the stigma is well known. The common Rue, a plant 

 everywhere to be met with, moves one of its antherae every day to the 

 stigma, till all of them in their turns have deposited their pollen 

 there. 



The Neapolitan star flower (Ornithogalum nutans) has six broad 

 stamina, which stand close together in the form of a bell, the three 

 external ones being but half the length of the others ; so that 

 it seems impossible for their antherae ever to convey their pollen to the 

 stigma; but nature, by an admirable contrivance, bends the summits 

 of these external stamina inwards between the other filaments, so 

 that they are enabled to accomplish their purpose. 



The Plaintain tree (Miisa) bears two kinds of hermaphrodite 

 flowers ; some have imperfect antherae, others only the rudiments of 

 stigmata; as the last mentioned kind appear after the others, they 

 cannot impregnate them, consequently no seeds are produced in our 

 gardens, and scarcely ever on the plants cultivated in India. An 

 event happened this year, which I have long wished for ; two plaintain- 



