Some Wayside Problems 53 



time when, according to this theory, it would be best 

 to open? A notable instance of this is the Goat's 

 Beard (Tragopogon pratensis\ known from its practice 

 in this respect as "Jack-go-to bed-at-noon." This 

 flower, one of the multitudinous tribe which many 

 compendiously set down as "dandelions," is wide 

 open in the early morning. By the time that the sun 

 is half way to the meridian it has begun to put up 

 its shutters, as if to warn intending visitors that its 

 business hours are over, and by twelve o'clock it is 

 fast shut, just when the insect world is appearing 

 in fullest force. Yet notwithstanding its go-to-bed 

 habits the somnolent plant seems to get on in the 

 world quite as well as most of its more wakeful 

 and harder working neighbours. It ripens its fruit 

 in abundance, and is very tolerably plentiful through 

 the length and breadth of the land. Paying no 

 attention to the law which we are told to regard as 

 governing plant life, and exhibiting no sign of suffer- 

 ing for its negligence, it certainly suggests a query 

 as to whether the said law be absolutely established. 



If the Goat's Beard contradicts the law in one 

 way, the Globe Flower (Trollius europceus), also a 

 fairly common species, does so in another. The 

 former shuts itself up at noonday, the latter never 

 opens at all. Instead of regarding insects as the 

 most precious of all visitors, to be allured at any 

 price, that in their comings and goings they may 

 carry pollen to and fro and secure cross-fertilization, 

 the globe flower constructs with its petals a covering, 

 something after the manner of a Roman testudo^ which 

 so effectually shuts in its stamens and pistils as to 

 make it morally impossible for anything but self- 

 fertilization to take place. So grevious an offender 

 against vegetable economics ought assuredly to come 

 to speedy ruin, yet in its favourite soils it flourishes 

 exceedingly, and up the moist valley of many a 

 Highland stream its flowers are thick as are Butter- 

 cups elsewhere. 



