A POPULAR FALLACY RESPECTING THE SUNFLOWER. 
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6. When rooted, put them into larger pots, as they may require it, and treat 
them in every respect as old plants. 
The Caralluma jimbriata is beautifully figured in Messrs. Loddiges’ Botanica 
Cabinet, t. 1863, from which we venture to copy our wood-cut. 
A POPULAR FALLACY RESPECTING THE 
SUNFLOWER. 
Who has not heard that the sunflower keeps her face turned invariably towards 
the sun ? From the peer to the peasant it is believed — science has vouched the 
fact — ignorance implicitly credits the assertion — poets gladly seize, and dilate upon 
so eloquent a theme ; and we dote upon such elegant lines as the following : — 
“ The heart that has fondly lov’d never forgets, 
But truly loves on to the close ; 
As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets, 
The same look which she turn’d when he rose.” — T. Moore. 
Thus are our senses taken captive, and we are led willing dupes in the track of 
those who chance to take the lead. 
That able botanist, and amiable man, the late Sir James Edward Smith, has 
unaccountably fallen into the popular error of believing in the above-mentioned 
truly feminine and graceful quality of constancy, attributed to the sunflower. In 
his “ Introduction to Botany,” 2nd edition, p. 209, he says, 
“ Nor is this effect of light peculiar to leaves alone. Many flowers are equally 
sensible to it, especially the compound-radiated ones, as the daisy, sunflower, mari- 
gold, &c. In their forms, nature seems to have delighted to imitate the radiant 
luminary, to which they are apparently dedicated ; and in the absence of whose 
beams, many of them do not expand their blossoms at all. The stately annual 
sunflower, helianthus annuus , displays this phenomenon more conspicuously, on 
account of its size, but many of the tribe have greater sensibility to light. Its 
stem is compressed in some degree, to facilitate the movement of the flower, which, 
after following the sun all day, returns after sunset to the east, by its natural 
elasticity, to meet his beams in the morning. 
“ Doctor Hales thought the heat of the sun, by contracting the stem on one 
side, occasioned the flower to incline that way ; but if so, it would scarcely return 
completely at night.” 
Voltaire’s pleasant exemplification of superstition here presses itself forcibly on 
my recollection. A giant, seventy feet high, is reported to exist ; the learned soon 
begin to discuss and dispute about the colour of his hair, the thickness of his thumb, 
&c. They exclaim, cabal, and even fight on the subject. A stranger modestly 
