Referred to by figures in the text.
Note 1, p. [4].--The Horologe of Flora.
The Horologe of Flora is alluded to by Pliny with his usual felicity of thought and expression. “Dedi tibi herbas horarum indices; et ut ne sole quidem oculos tuos a terra avoces, heliotropium ac lupinum circumaguntur cum illo. Cur etiam altius spectas, ipsumque cœlum scrutatis? Habes ante pedes tuos ecce Vergilias.”--Hist. Nat. lib. xviii. c. 27.
Linnæus enumerates forty-six flowers which possess this kind of sensibility. The following are a few of them, with their respective hours of rising and setting, as the Swedish naturalist terms them. He divides them into meteoric flowers, which less accurately observe the hour of unfolding, but are expanded sooner or later, according to the cloudiness, moisture, or pressure of the atmosphere.
2nd. Tropical flowers, which open in the morning, and close before evening every day; but the hour of the expanding becomes earlier or later, as the length of the day increases or decreases.
3rd. Equinoctial flowers, which serve for the construction of Flora’s dial, since they open at a certain and exact hour of the day, and for the most part close at another determinate hour: for instance, the Leontodon Taraxacum, dandelion, opens at 5-6, closes at 8-9; Hieracium Pilosella, mouse-ear hawkweed, opens at 8, closes at 2; Tragopogon pratensis, yellow goat’s-beard, opens at sunrise, and shuts at noon with such regularity, that the husbandman who adopts it as the signal of dinner-time need not fear to have his pudding too much or too little boiled; Sonchus lævis, smooth sow-thistle, opens at 5, closes at 11-12; Lactuca sativa, cultivated lettuce, opens at 7, closes at 10; Tragopogon luteus, yellow goat’s-beard, opens at 3-5, closes at 9-10; Lapsana, nipplewort, opens at 5-6, closes at 10-11; Nymphæaalba, white water-lily, opens at 7, closes at 5; Papaver nudicaule, naked poppy, opens at 5, closes at 7; Hemerocallis fulva, tawny day-lily, opens at 5, closes at 7-8; Convolvulus, opens at 5-6; Malva, mallow, opens at 9-10, closes at l; Arenaria purpurea, purple sandwort, opens at 9-10, closes at 2-3; Anagallis, pimpernel, opens at 7-8; Portulaca hortensis, garden purslain, opens at 9-10, closes at 11-12; Dianthus prolifer, proliferous pink, opens at 8, closes at 1; Cichoreum, succory, opens at 4-5; Hypocharis, opens at 6-7, closes at 4-5; Crepis, opens at 4-5, closes at 10-11; Picris, opens at 4-5, closes at 12; Calendula Africana, opens at 7, closes at 3-4, &c.
“Thus in each flower and simple bell,
That in our path betrodden lie,
Are sweet remembrancers who tell