THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 213 



change. Usually its flower is of a vermilion red, but 

 it is also sometimes of a magnificent sky blue, which 

 made some botanists think they were two different 

 species. 



A pretty little plant of the genus Myosotis, which 

 is met with in our arid grounds, varies still more sin- 

 gularly in its color, for on the same stalk we find at 

 the same time red, yellow, and blue flowers a peculi- 

 arity to which this species owes the name of Myoso- 

 tis diversicolor which has been given it. 



Other plants display a still more remarkable phe- 

 nomenon, for in them the same flower changes its 

 colors at different hours of the day. This happens 

 with the Hibiscus mutdbiliS) the corollas of which are 

 white in the morning, become rose-colored towards the 

 middle of the day, and in the evening take on a beau- 

 tiful red tint. 



The successive change in the tints of the corolla 

 is easily conceived ; it may depend on vital action or 

 on chemical reactions affected by time ; but what is 

 much more difficult to explain is, that flowers having 

 displayed a certain category of changes during the 

 day, go through the same round of variation the day 

 following. This is observed in the variously colored 

 corn-flag (Gladiolus versicolor Linn.\ the corolla of 

 which, brown in the morning, becomes blue in the 

 evening, and on the day following takes on again ex- 

 actly the same succession of tints as it showed the day 

 before. What a variety of perfumes the flower pos- 

 sesses ! And yet notwithstanding their thousand and 

 one shades of difference, those whose sense of smell 



