LATER YEARS OF A PLANT. 201 



be connected with the power of others to emit light. The 

 gentle daughter of Linne, when walking on a dry, sultry 

 summer evening through her father's green-house, first ob- 

 served flashes of phosphorescent light on a few plants. 

 Since then others also have been found to be so endowed, 

 and the common nasturtium of our gardens, if plucked 

 at the time of a bright sunshine, and at once carried into 

 a dark room, will become visible to the eye, after a while, 

 by a gentle light emitted from its leaves. In fact, most 

 of our yellow or orange-colored flowers, our marigold and 

 monkshood, will in serene summer evenings give out light, 

 either in the form of sparks, or in a steadier, but more 

 feeble glow. In a few plants this peculiar gift is not 

 limited to the flowers only, but common to all leaves. 

 Thus many lichens, creeping along the roof of caverns, 

 lend an air of enchantment to them, by the soft and clear 

 light they diffuse, while another plant, abounding in the 

 jungles of the Madura district in the East Indies, gives 

 such an extraordinary vivid light, that it illuminates the 

 ground around it for some distance. 



Equally striking and peculiar is the clear, loud ' sound 

 with which the golden or dazzling white flowers of cer- 

 tain palm-trees open a sound already noticed in times 

 of antiquity, as we learn from Pindar, who speaks of the 

 season, when " the first opening shoot of the date-palm 

 proclaims the arrival of balmy spring." This, however, 

 seems to be the only exception to the general stillness, 

 with which Nature proceeds in her work, ever showing 

 how calm and unpretending the growth of every thing 

 beautiful is in God's visible world. It is a frequent re- 

 0* 



