296 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



The diary mentions : ' Horol^gium Floras.' To dis- 

 cover the time of day by the opening and closing of 

 flowers, from morn till eve, also the invention of Lin- 

 naeus, will be of agreeable use to the world.' 



Common names of flowers are sometimes applied 

 from the hour of their closing or expanding, as ' Four 

 o'clock,' c Twelve o'clock,' &c. 



The notion tickled the English people vastly as it 

 got into the popular books. Even I remember, when 

 a child, being encouraged to make a Linnaean clock, 

 with a stick in the centre as a sundial, in niy tiny 

 garden. I found such dials as difficult to keep in order 

 as Charles V. found his family of clocks at Yuste. 



But whether the folding of the pimpernel quite 

 early, and other plants at stated hours, be really capable 

 of being formed into a clock, which has always (after 

 divers experiments) seemed more of a fancy than a 

 certainty, there still remains the poetical fact of the 

 influence of night on many flowers, some blooming, 

 some putting forth their fragrance only at night for the 

 unsleeping angels to enjoy. 



Her eyes like marigolds had sheathed their light, 



And canopied in darkness lay 

 Till they might open to adorn the day. SHAKESPEARE. 



Among a series of rich exotic flower paintings in 

 their phases, done at Bermuda by a friend of my own, 

 a most interesting one was the ' Progress of the Night- 

 blooming Cereus,' with its lovely blossom in bud at 6 P.M., 

 open at 10, glorious at midnight, at 2 A.M. drooping 



