FIG-MARTGOI.D TRIBE. 63 



cies, the flowers close in the shade, or in (hill weather, 

 and only expand under bright sunshine. I scarcely 

 know a more interesting sight than in a summer's day, 

 after a storm, to watch a bush of this genus, which 

 has thrown its neak trailing arms over a piece of rock, 

 and which leans forward to the south, as if to catch 

 the earliest influence of the beams it loves so well. 

 A\Tiile the sky is darkened by clouds, all its blossoms 

 are shut up so closely, that one would hardly suspect 

 the bush of being more than a tuft of leaiy branches, 

 mth some withered or unexpanded blossoms scattered 

 over them. But the moment that the bright rays of 

 the sun begin to play upon the flowers, the scene 

 changes visibly beneath the eye ; the petals slowly 

 part, and unfold their shining surfaces, of almost 

 metallic brilliancy, to the sunbeams, and in a few 

 minutes become so many living stars, often of the most 

 gorgeous tints, and so entirely hide the leaves, that 

 scarcely a trace of them is visible, while the whole 

 bush has burst into a blaze of glittering splendour. 



In this case, the phenomenon depends upon a specific 

 irritability of the petals, the cause of which is one of 

 those inscrutable mysteries that the limited faculties 

 of man are incapable of penetrating. But in the fruit 

 there is an interesting phenomenon of another kind, the 

 cause of which is more easily explained. The seed- 

 vessels of the Fig- Marigold, produced, as I have just 

 told you, in the sandy deserts of Southern Africa, fall 

 off* when ripe, and are driven about by the wind. If 

 they were to open during the wet season, or in wet 

 places, the seeds would fall out and perish, for it is 



