128 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Others are difpofed in girandoles, and receive the 

 effect of the folar rays only under one point of the 

 compafs. Such is the girandole of the lilach, 

 which, pointing with various afpects, to the Eaft, 

 to the South, to the Weft, and to the North, pre- 

 fents, on the fame clufter, flowers in bud, half 

 open, fully blown, fading, and all the delightful 

 fhades of the florification. 



There are flowers, fuch as the compound, which 

 being in a horizontal pofition, and completely ex- 

 pofed, behold the Sun, like the Horizon itfelf, 

 from his rifing to his fetting ; of this defcription is 

 the flower of the dandelion, But it poflefles very 

 peculiar means of fheltering itfelf from the heat : 

 it clofes entirely whenever the heat becomes ex- 

 ceffive. It has been obferved to open, in Sum- 

 mer, at half an hour after five in the morning, 

 and to collect it's petals toward the centre, about 

 nine o'clock. The flower of the garden-lettuce, 



fame Darius fent word to the Greeks of Ionia, who were laying 

 wafte the country, that if they did not give over their depreda- 

 tions, he would treat them like pines. The Greeks, who by this 

 time had become infected with wit, and had proportionally be- 

 gun to lofe fight of Nature, did not comprehend the meaning of 

 this. Upon enquiry, they at length difcovered that Darius 

 meant they fhould underftand it to be his refolution utterly to 

 exterminate them ; for the pine-tree, once cut down, fhoots 

 out again no more. 



which 



