Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1889-02-15
FLOWERS AT NIGHT.
The Nature of the Nocturnal Movement
and Attitudes of Plants.


and Attitudes of Plants.
The clovers are indeed a drowsy
family; they keep regular hours and
make a thorough business of their
slumbers-red clover with their heads
tucked under their wings, as it were,
the young blossom clusters completely
hooded beneath the overlapping upper
pair of leaves, and every individual,
leaf below bowed with folded palms.
The white clovers were similarly well
brought up, and continued their YES
pers through the livelong night, their
little praying bands to be seen every
where along the path. The yellow
hop-clover played all sorts of antics
with its leaves without seeming rhyme
or reason. The tall bush clover rising
here and their among the slumberous
beds, presented complete surprise,
being entirely changed from its diurnal
aspect, the ordinary generous leafy
spread OF foliage now assuming the
shape of an upright wand, each three
foliate leaf being raised upon its stem,
with the leaflets folded inward, clasp
ing the maternal stalk 1t had its
arms full indeed, and seemed conscious
of its heavy responsibility. The
trailing ground-nut vine and the deli
cate wild bean were hardly recogniza-
BILE in their odd night-dress; and the
! desmodiums at the border of the
woods presented a singular contrast
of dropping listlessness, with each
leal1et hanging as vertically as plum
met. | sought the familiar plumy beds
OF the little partridge-pea, wondering
what sort of reception would meet
rom that quarter, but fcand thesi
plants even more fast asleep and trans
formed than their drowsy neighbors,
and had trodden on number of the
plants ere | discerned them, for, like
the sensitive mimosa, which they 81
much resemble, and which
"opened is fanlke leaves to the light
ANA closed them beneath the kisses OF night
these tiny leaflets We're now folded in
long fiat ribbon for each leaf, pre-
senting thin edges to the sky. hardly
| distinguishable from the thin seed
pods among them.
The nature OF the nocturnal move
ments and attitudes of plants, both in
leaves and flowers, has long been a
theme of speculation among botanists
In the case of many flowers the night
attitudes have been conclusively
shown to have relation solely to their
fertilization by insects.
The dropping attitude of leaves at
night WAS commonly supposed to indi-
cate an aversion to moisture. MANY
plants assuming the same position
during ram as in the dew, thus SEEM
ing to verify the conjecture; but when
the same FRANKS were played in a
cloudy day or a dewless night, the ex-
/ PLANTATION had to be abandoned. In the
clover tribe the nocturnal positions al
ready described seem to be assumed
| only In the darkness. and this invar-
iahly, dew or no dew, while the leaves
| sGem to reyel in the raino remaining
freely 0Yen.-W. Hamilton Gibson, in
Aa'per's Naoneinr
Freshly BETWEEN you and me
springley, Miss Rosalie is a charming
girl. I'm really quite gone in that
quarter Springley-"O, you don,
know how that will please her. She
told me tie other evening that wher
you called she always thought yo,
would never go."-Boston Post.
1T is said that in eight cases csa {,
ten II man gets $50, 900 all OF "a sui
den he will either go cracked in tn,
mead or make laughing stock Of him
self That's doubtless the reason VIII,
Providence keeps $4,000 away frorI
90 many of us.-Detron Free Press