And a flower
that does not open till noon or later at Senegal will not open at all in
France or England. This seems as if heat or its absence were also (as
well as light) an agent in the opening and shutting of flowers; though
the opening of such as blow only in the night cannot be attributed to
either light or heat."
The seasons may be marked in a similar manner by their floral
representatives. Mary Howitt quotes as a motto to her poem on _Holy
Flowers_ the following example of religious devotion timed by flowers:--
"Mindful of the pious festivals which our church prescribes," (says a
Franciscan Friar) "I have sought to make these charming objects of
floral nature, the _time-pieces of my religious calendar_, and the
mementos of the hastening period of my mortality. Thus I can light the
taper to our Virgin Mother on the blowing of the white snow-drop which
opens its floweret at the time of Candlemas; the lady's smock and the
daffodil, remind me of the Annunciation; the blue harebell, of the
Festival of St George; the ranunculus, of the Invention of the Cross;
the scarlet lychnis, of St. John the Baptist's day; the white lily, of
the Visitation of our Lady, and the Virgin's bower, of her Assumption;
and Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holyrood, and Christmas, have all their
appropriate monitors. I learn the time of day from the shutting of the
blossoms of the Star of Jerusalem and the Dandelion, and the hour of the
night by the stars.
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