XVIII 
PLANTS THAT GO TO SLEEP 
LANTS require their sleep no less than do 
animals or people. 
What a fantastic fairyland is a garden at night! 
Here we find many sleepy heads all so quiet and 
drooping that one wonders whether strange dreams 
may be forming in their plant minds. Perhaps 
they are! Some flowers, like the evening-primrose, 
the datura, the night-blooming cereus, and the 
moonflower, are open only at night. What a con- 
trast between these wide-awake faces and the nu- 
merous sleepy ones! The leaves of the acacia, the 
lupin, and the clover, are so tightly closed that one 
is reminded of the wings of butterflies folded to- 
gether. Perhaps they are giving a “fairy-bed” to 
some poor, way-faring bee or moth! Look at the 
nodding nasturtiums bending their leaves as they 
bid us walk lightly lest we disturb their slumber! 
The sleep of plants is not the least interesting of 
the habits of these remarkably human-like things. 
The leaves of a plant such as the clover, formed of 
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