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Sunflower. 
(FALSE RICHES.) 
“ A foolish mimic sun.’ 
Robert Browning. 
G ERARDE, in his “ Herbal,” and other old writers termed 
this flower the “sun marygold;” they also indiscrimi¬ 
nately called marygolds “ sunflowers,” and vice versa. Some¬ 
times the Sunflower is styled turnsol, from the common belief 
that its blossoms always turn towards the sun ; and that they 
g 0 no t—despite its being termed “a vulgar error”—is not 
proven. Be this idea true or false, the poets, no mean autho¬ 
rities—have adopted the popular side, and thrown their valu¬ 
able testimony into the scale. Darwin, even better known as 
a botanist than a poet, says that the sunflower 
“ Climbs the upland lawn, 
And bows in homage to the rising dawn, 
Imbibes with eagle eye the golden ray, 
And watches, as it moves, the orb of day.” 
Thomson tells us that though as a rule the flowery race 
resign their new-flushed bloom before the passing beam, one, 
“ The lofty follower of the sun, 
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves, 
Drooping all night, and, when he warm returns, 
Points her enamour’d bosom to his ray.” 
In his “ Irish Melodies ” Moore has the comparison— 
“ As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets, 
The same look which she turn’d when he rose.” 
The Spaniards, who share “the vulgar error,” in common 
with most of their continental neighbours, have, in their Len- 
gua de Flores , adopted this flower as the emblem of faith, and 
one of their poets thus addresses it: 
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