198 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



times measure a foot in diameter, and when several of 

 these magnificent creatures are open at once, upon the 

 same plant, they seem like stars shining out in all their 

 lustre, and verifying the poet's assertion, that 



"Darkness shows us a world of light 

 "We never see by day." 



But it is a short glory indeed : at midnight they are 

 fully blown, as soon as the morning dawns upon them, 

 they fold up their charms, and a few hours later they 

 are decayed, leaving not a trace of their gorgeous beauty 

 behind them. 



Not all plants, it is well known, have flowers "to gaze 

 on us with gentle, child-like eyes ;" the ferns and allied 

 plants bearing seed without apparently blooming first. 

 Where they occur, however, they are only a collection of 

 several circles of more or less transformed and bright- 

 colored leaves, which mostly alternate with each other. In 

 the centre of these circles stand the reproductive organs, 

 and a minute dust is generally found on the petals, appa- 

 rently resting so lightly on them, that a breath of air 

 might blow it away. The variety of their color is surpassed 

 only by that of their shape. The purest colors occur in 

 Alpine plants, where living flowers skirt the eternal frost; 

 it is among these that we must look for the loveliest sky- 

 blue, the purest snow-white, and the most beautiful rose- 

 color, until we reach the very glory of luxuriant rhodo- 

 dendrons forming a bright purple girdle around snow- 

 covered peaks. By their side the flowers of the plain 

 look impure and stained. But they have no odor, fra- 



