284 
DIAL OF FLOWERS. 
3. Equinoctial Flowers, which open at a cer¬ 
tain and exact hour of the day, and for the 
most part close at another determinate hour. 
The following are a few of the most striking 
of these equinoctial flowers :— 
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 
Flower, 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 takes its generic name from 
its quality of opening its flowers at four in the 
evening, and not closing them in the morning 
till the same hour returns, when they again 
expand in the evening at the same hour. Many 
people transplant them from the woods into 
their gardens, and use them as a dial or a 
clock, especially in cloudy weather. 
The Evening Primrose is well known from 
its remarkable properties of regularly shutting 
with a loud popping noise, about sunset in the 
evening, and opening at sunrise in the morn¬ 
ing. After six o’clock, these flowers regularly 
report the approach of night. 
