4 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL, 
effort by Infinite Wisdom, and we must not take upon us to say 
that in a state of nature one animal has a harder task assigned 
it than another; they all have exertions to make in seeking their 
food, in preparing it for the stomach, and in digesting it; there 
are muscles or organs of mechanical action employed in all these 
operations, and after efforts these muscles need repose in order 
to recover their tone, so that they may act anew when circum¬ 
stances render it necessary. 
The repose of plants, on the other hand, is not in any degree 
dependent upon or brought about by any exertion upon their 
part. It is the result of the position and evolutions of the 
earth, with reference to the sun, and of the effects of these 
upon the atmosphere and the ground; and unless, in as far as 
the nature of the plant is suited to these circumstances, it is quite 
passive in the matter. 
This nocturnal repose of plants has nothing to do with what 
is most incorrectly and injudiciously termed “ the sleep of 
plants;” incorrectly, because it has no resemblance whatever to 
sleep in animals, the only kind of sleep that we know anything 
about; and injudiciously, because it gives the ignorant and un¬ 
thinking a false analogy which leads them into error. What is 
thus called the sleep of plants is nothing but a simple adaptation 
of certain species or parts of them to the changes of the atmos¬ 
phere. A plant stands erect or droops, closes or opens the 
petals of its flowers, folds its leaves over the tender buds in 
their axillee, or expands them according to the state of the at¬ 
mosphere. But to call one of these states “sleep” and the other 
its opposite, is just as absurd as it would be to say that a man is 
“ asleep” when his great-coat is on, and awake when it is off. 
e 
Such are the false analogies that are apt to warp our judgment 
with regard to the repose of plants, and we must understand and 
get rid of them in order to be in a fit condition for entering upon 
the subject. 
The grand cause which regulates the nocturnal repose of plants 
is the latitude, although the local effects are much modified by 
local circumstances. These are, however, matters of detail, and 
can be known only by a careful study of the physical geography 
of the several regions in which plants grow. The latitude is a 
