THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 339 



ing the months of June and July Flora parades all the 

 pomp of her empire: the foxglove, the sage, the wild 

 poppy, the mint, and the pink bloom in our fields and 

 woods. In August, the asters, dahlias, and helianthus seem 

 to brave the heat of the sun. Finally, in September, the 

 colchicum scatters its purplish flowers all over our mead- 

 ows, and announces the return of winter. It is the plant 

 which, according to Linnaeus, gives the signal of repose to 

 the botanist. 



The hour at which each flower opens is itself so uniform 

 that by watching them floral clocks of sufficient accuracy 

 can be arranged. 



Father Kircher had dreamed of it, but vaguely and with- 

 out pointing out anything ; it is to Linnaeus that we must 

 ascribe the ingenious idea of indicating all the hours by the 

 time at which plants open or shut their corollas. The 

 Swedish botanist had created a flower-clock for the climate 

 which he inhabited, but as, in our latitudes, a more brill- 

 iant and radiant dawn makes the flowers earlier, Lamarck 

 was obliged to construct for France another clock, which is 

 a little in advance of that at Upsala. 



This regularity in the opening of flowers strikes every 

 person; some savage races make use of it to divide their 

 days and their toils. These begin at the hour when the 

 marigold opens, and the Natchez, Chateaubriand says, make 

 their love appointments for the time when the last rays of 

 day are about to close the flowers of the Hibiscus. 1 



1 There is something very inexplicable in these facts. The Sidas of India ex- 

 pand their flowers in the morning only, while the Abutilons, which scarcely differ 

 from them in any point of structure, only unfold their blossoms in the evening. 

 TR. 



