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104 
Sunflower.. ..False Riches. 
The Sunflower has been thus named from the re¬ 
semblance which its broad golden disk and rays bear 
to the sun. The first Spaniards who arrived in Peru 
were amazed at the profuse display of gold among the 
people, but they were still more astonished when, in 
May, they beheld whole fields covered with these 
flowers, which they concluded, at first sight, must be 
of the same precious metal. From this circumstance, 
and the observation that gold, however abundant, can¬ 
not render a person truly rich, the Sunflower has been 
made the emblem of false wealth. Many of the English 
poets have adopted the notion that this flower ever turns 
its face to the sun. Thomson, Moore, Darwin, and 
Barton make a very fine use of the idea. But it is not 
a fact. Those flowers which face the east at the open¬ 
ing of day, never turn to the west at the close of it. 
Searcher of gold, whose days and nights 
All waste away in anxious care, 
Estranged from all of life’s delights, 
Unlearned in all that is most fair— 
Who sailest not with easy glide, 
But delvest in the depths of tide, 
And strugglest in the foam; 
0 ! come and view this land of graves, 
Death’s northern sea of frozen waves, 
And mark thee out thy home. 
J. 0. Rockwell. 
