172 ACADEMIC BOTANY. 



Then the male flowers float — shall we not say they swim ? 

 — towards the females, and project their pollen elastically, 

 so that it reaches the stigma of the female flowers. After 

 this the male flowers die; the females sink again to the 

 bottom by recoiling their peduncles, and ripen their seeds 

 beneath the water. The tenderest human mother is not 

 more careful of her little ones than our homely Gooba Pea 

 and the European Cyclamen (Fig. 245), which bear their 

 flowers erect in the open air until after fertilization, and 

 then twist on their stalks, descend against all law except 

 the law of volition, and bury their young pods to ripen 

 under ground. 



419. Sleep. — Many plants sleep, like other living things. 

 The Mimosa, Albizzia, Sensitive Plant, and Locust fold 

 their leaves at night. The Kentucky Coftee-tree is a 

 sound sleeper ; it does not fully awake until nine o'clock in 

 the morning ; the lowest leaves open first, then the others, 

 by degrees, as if the circulation of the sap were concerned 

 in the process, like the circulation of our blood when we 

 sleep. All these above-named plants belong to the Pea 

 Family, in which sensitiveness and sleep are prominent 

 characteristics. Some of the Wood-Sorrels sleep also. So 

 do some of the Grasses, notably the Strephium of Guiana. 



