190 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



for the first time, produces its seed and dies; so true is 

 it, that 



"He bids each flower his quickening word obey, 

 Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay .'V 



Plants, however, have not only their age of blooming, 

 but also their season. Whilst most of them open their 

 bright chalices in spring or midsummer, when " the sun 

 smiles on the earth, and the exuberant earth returns the 

 smile in flowers," others do not bloom until fall or even 

 winter. The autumnal crocus, which gives us saffron, 

 blooms not until almost all the other flowers are gone. 

 The black hellebore sends its pale green flowers as a 

 Christmas present, and the fragrant blackthorn blossoms, 

 while the cold north-east winds blow, in spite of cold 

 and frost. The vernal crocus sends up its golden cups 

 in early March, however cold it may be in the reign of 

 what Coleridge calls "the dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth- 

 chattering month," and the silvery almond flower blooms 

 on a leafless bough. Nay, the very hour of blooming is 

 appointed to plants with mysterious accuracy. A few years 

 ago I went to see, near Upsala, the cottage of old Linne, 

 the father of modern botany, and among all the precious 

 relics carefully preserved, near his home, there was no 

 token of the pious reverence with which his countrymen 

 honor his name, more touching than his floral clock. In 

 a half circle, carefully arranged around his writing table, 

 stood a number of plants which opened their flowers each 

 at a certain moment, so that they revealed at a glance 

 to the great master, the hour of the day, with unerring 

 precision. For, as every bird has his hour when he awakes 



