262 
PHENOMENA OF PLANTS. 
is also well known that the sensitive plants, and cassia, observe 
the same rule. 
Besides affording prognostics, many plants also fold them- 
selves up at particular hours, with such regularity, as to have 
acquired particular names from this property. The following 
are among the more remarkable plants of this description. 
Goatsbeard. — The flowers of both species of Tragopogon, 
open in the morning at the approach of the sun, and without 
regard to the state of the weather, regularly shut about noon. 
Hence it is generally known in the country by the name of 
go-to-bed-at-noon. 
The Princesses' leaf, or four o'clock forcer, ( Mirabilis ,) in 
the Malay Islands, is an elegant shrub, so called by the natives, 
because their ladies are fond of the grateful odour of its white 
leaves. It opens its flowers at four in the evening, and does not 
close them till the same hour returns, in the morning. Many 
people transplant them from the woods into their gardens, and 
use them as a dial or clock, especially in cloudy weather. 
The Evening Primrose, ( (Enothera,) is well known from its 
remarkable properties of regularly shutting with aloud popping 
noise, about sunrise, and opening at sunset. After six o’clock, 
these flowers regularly report the approach of night. 
The tamarind tree, the water lily, {Nymphcea,) the mary- 
gold, the false sensitive plant, and several others of the Dia- 
delphia class in serene weather, expand their leaves in the day 
time, and contract them during the night. According to some 
botanists, the tamarind tree enfolds within its leaves, the flowers 
or fruit every night, in order to guard them from cold or rain. 
The flower of the garden lettuce, which is in a vertical plane, 
opens at seven o’clock, and shuts at ten. 
“ A species of serpentine aloes, without prickles, whose large 
and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour, of the Vanilla du- 
ring the time of its expansion, which is very short, is cultivated 
in the imperial garden of Paris. It does not blossom until to- 
wards the month of July, and about five o’clock in the evening, 
at which time it gradually opens its petals, expands them, 
droops and dies. By ten o’clock the same night, it is totally 
withered, to the great astonishment of the spectators who flock 
in crowds to see it. 
“ The cereus, a native of Jamaica and Vera Cruz, expands an 
exquisitely beautiful flower, and emits a highly fragrant odour, 
for a few hours in the night, and then closes to open no more. 
The flower is nearly a foot in diameter, the inside of the calyx, 
of a splendid yellow, and the numerous petals are of a pure 
The Go-to-bed-at-noon — The four o’clock — Evening Primrose — Night- 
blooming Cereus, &c. 
