158 THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS 
a number of leaflets, will fold up not only in the 
night but even in the daytime if the light becomes 
too strong. 
Plants usually have certain times for sleeping; 
but, like people, this is mostly habit with them 
and they may be made to change their sleeping 
hours by artificial darkness or light. With the ex- 
ception of the night-bloomers, which, like the owl 
and other night birds, have their own reason for 
preferring darkness, most plants like to be awake 
in the daylight, and to go to sleep only when the 
sun has gone and darkness has settled down and 
their own special bee-friends are dozing away with 
folded wings to await the dawn. 
But plants, like chickens, may be fooled by arti- 
ficial darkness. It has been observed that often 
during an eclipse of the sun, certain plants, like 
the pheasant’s-eye, would mistake the darkness for 
that of night and rapidly close their flowers and 
leaves in sleep. 
Some most interesting experiments have been 
made with a sensitive-plant, mimosa. At night its 
sleep was disturbed by the presence of a bright 
light, and during the day it was placed in a dark- 
ened room. As a result the plant was much trou- 
bled; it acted like a disturbed bird or animal. It 
opened and closed irregularly for some time, but 
