Every body likes flowers. We like them wherever we see them. How pleasant they are to our eyes as we see them in the garden! How their various colors please us as we look along the borders! Some are red, some are white, some are blue, and some are yellow. All these different colors, mingled with the fresh green leaves, make a feast for our eyes.
And then we love to look at each flower by itself. Some flowers we like better than we do others. A pretty little flower that smells sweet, we like better than we do a large one that has no perfume. The peony is very beautiful, but we do not love it as we do the little pink with its delightful fragrance.
It was a garden in which Adam and Eve were placed. While they were innocent and pure God surrounded them with beautiful things, because he loved them so much. Before they sinned they lived among the flowers and trees of the garden of Eden. It was more beautiful than any garden that has been seen since that time. It was so beautiful that God would not let Adam and Eve stay in it after they had sinned.
As we roam about the fields and the woods, it is pleasant to see here and there a flower. We should hardly enjoy our walk if we did not see them. They are like familiar friends that we love to meet. We see them come every year after the winter is gone, and we like to bid them welcome. A little girl, finding a wild violet early in the spring, exclaimed, “How glad I am to see you again! It is a long time since I have seen you, and you look as pretty as ever!” The delight expressed by this little girl is felt by every body that loves flowers, as they come one after another in the spring. How much we should miss them if they did not come every year!
The earliest flowers that we see in the spring are the most precious to us. They are very welcome, coming so soon after the cold winter is gone. They are the first children of spring. They are few. We find them only here and there. But we know that there will be many more flowers as the warm summer comes on; and we rejoice to greet the first of the host of beautiful things that are to delight our eyes in the field and in the garden.
These early flowers that we love so much are very little flowers. Look at the sweet little flowers of the trailing arbutus as they peep out from among its rough leaves. It seems as if they scarcely dared to show themselves, for fear that old winter had hardly gone. The violets too, are small, and just lift their heads from the ground. So, too, the delicate anemones, that are moved by the least breath of air, are very small.
We are so fond of flowers that we like to have them where we can look at them in the winter. We are not willing to wait till spring comes. So we keep them in our warm rooms on stands at the windows. Those who can afford it sometimes have green-houses, in order that they may keep a great variety of plants, and have flowers all the time.
People sometimes become very much attached to a few plants that they keep in their windows. Their opening flowers seem to smile upon them, and this is very pleasant to them in the midst of the dreariness of winter. It makes a little summer for them in-doors. And if the plants happen to get frozen some very cold night, it makes them feel really quite sad. A little girl became very much attached to a plant given to her by her mother. She watered it every day, and watched the buds on it as they opened into flowers. It was one of her pets. But one night it froze, and the little girl wept over her loss. She felt as if she had lost a sweet and ever-smiling friend. A kind neighbor gave her another plant of the same kind; but it was a long time before she could feel that it was just as good as the one that she had lost.
There is a beautiful story in French of a prisoner who became exceedingly attached to a flower. He was put in prison by Napoleon because he was supposed to be an enemy of the government. One day as Charney (for that was his name) was walking in the yard adjoining his cell, he saw a plant pushing up from between the stones. How it came there he could not tell. Perhaps some one carelessly dropped the seed. Or perhaps the seed was blown over the wall by the wind. He knew not what plant it was, but he felt a great interest in it. Shut in within those walls away from all his friends, not permitted to interest himself with either reading or writing, he was glad to have this little living thing to watch over and love. Every day when he walked in the court he spent much time in looking at it. He soon saw some buds. He watched them as they grew larger and larger, and longed to see them open. And when the flowers at length came out he was filled with joy. They were very beautiful. They had three colors in them—white, purple, and rose color; and there was a delicate silvery fringe all round the edge. Their fragrance, too, was delicious. Charney examined them more than any he had ever seen before; and never did flowers look so beautiful to him as these.
Charney guarded his plant with great care from all harm. He made a frame-work out of such things as he could get, so that it should not be broken down by some careless foot or by the wind. One day there was a hail-storm; and to keep his tender plant from the pelting of the hail, he stood bending over it as long as the storm lasted.
The plant was something more than a pleasure and a comfort to the prisoner. It taught him some things that he had never learned before, though he was a very wise man. When he went into the prison he was an atheist. He did not believe there was a God; and among his scribblings on the prison wall he had written, “All things come by chance.” But as he watched his loved flower, its opening beauties told him that there is a God. He felt that none but God could make that flower. And he said that the flower had taught him more than he had ever learned from the wise men of the earth.
The cherished and guarded plant proved of great service to the prisoner. It was the means of his being set free. I will tell you how this was. There was another prisoner, an Italian, whose daughter came to visit him. She was much interested by the tender care which Charney took of his plant. At one time it seemed as if it were going to die, and Charney felt very sad. He wished that he could take up the stones around it, but he could not without permission. The Italian girl managed to see the Empress Josephine, and to tell her about it; and permission was given to Charney to do with his plant as he desired. The stones were taken up, and the earth was loosened, and the flower was soon as bright as ever again.
Now Josephine thought much of flowers. It is said that she admired the purple of her cactuses more than the Imperial purple of her robe, and that the perfume of her magnolias was pleasanter to her than the flattery of her attendants. She, too, had a cherished flower—the sweet jasmine, that she had brought from the home of her youth, a far-off island of the West Indies. This had been planted and reared by her own hand; and though its simple beauty would scarcely have excited the attention of a stranger, it was dearer to her than all the rare and brilliant flowers that filled her hot-houses. She thought a good deal, therefore, of the prisoner that took such care of his one flower. She inquired about him, and after a little time persuaded the Emperor to give him his freedom. And when Charney left the prison he took the plant with him to his home; for he could not bear to part with this sweet companion that had cheered him in his lonely prison life, taught him such lessons of wisdom, and was at last the means of setting him free.
Some, perhaps, would say that the seed of this flower got into that prison-yard, and took root in the earth between the stones by chance, and that this was all very lucky for the prisoner. But this is not so. Nothing comes by chance. God sent that seed there, and made it lodge in the right place to have it grow. He sent it to do great things for the poor prisoner. Little did Charney think, when he saw that tiny plant first pushing up from between the stones, that by it God would free him from prison, and, what was better, deliver him from his infidelity.
Questions.—What is said of our love for flowers? Do we like some flowers better than others? What is said of the garden of Eden? How do we feel about the wild flowers of spring? Why do we like the earliest best? Are these large or small? Mention some of them. Why do people keep flowers in the winter in their rooms and in green-houses? Tell about the little girl and her plant. What is the story of the French prisoner and his plant?
It is from our love of flowers that a bouquet is always a pretty present to a friend. The kind teacher is much gratified when a scholar, with a bright, cheerful “Good morning,” gives her a bouquet. Though the flowers may be simple and common, the present is a very pleasant one. It is saying to your teacher, I love the beautiful things that God has made, and I know that you love them. It is saying more than this. It is telling your teacher that you love her. It is because you love her that you give her the sweet flowers that you love so much. And she will feel that though the flowers will fade, your love to her will ever be fresh.
How grateful are flowers in the chamber of sickness! It would weary the sick one to see all her kind friends. But they can send her presents to let her know that they think of her. And what tokens of remembrance are more welcome than flowers?
Flowers are much used as ornaments, even among savages. They are more beautiful than any ornaments that man can make. What is more elegant than handsome hair dressed with flowers?
As natural flowers droop so easily, we make artificial ones for ornaments. Sometimes they are made so well that they look like fresh flowers just picked from the garden.
We like flowers so much that we copy them in the figures in dress and furniture. Gems and ornaments of gold and silver are arranged in flower-shapes. Figures of flowers are seen in the patterns on dresses more often than any other figures. The calico-printer gets his prettiest figures from the flowers that he sees in the field and garden. The richest carpets are those in which the figures are flowers. We often see in the carpet under our feet a great variety of flowers of the most beautiful colors. We seem to tread on beds crowded full of roses and various kinds of flowers; and we have no fear of crushing them as when we tread on real flowers. Flowers, too, are stamped on the papers on our walls. You often see representations of flowers woven in table-cloths and napkins. You see the figures of flowers worked beautifully on articles of silver. You see them too on vases in which we put real flowers. Flowers are often carved in furniture, and even the stove-maker has them on his stoves, whether they are made for the parlor or the kitchen. Thus it is that we have flowers about us whenever we can. And where we can not have flowers, we have representations of them.
I said in the first chapter that every body likes flowers. Perhaps I ought to say that almost every body likes them. A man may be so wicked and so like a brute that he can see no beauty in flowers. A man may love to hoard up money, so much, that he will not care about any thing beautiful. Some men can not see any use in flowers. They think that potatoes, and turnips, and beets, ought to grow where their daughters have their flower-garden. They forget that God has given us beautiful things for the purpose of having us enjoy them. God has a use for every thing that he has made, and this is the use of flowers. And he likes to see us love the beautiful things that he has given us, and make a proper use of them.
Children always love flowers. The baby puts out its little hands to them before it can hold any thing, and shows that it is pleased by its smiles and funny noises. And the child that can run about and talk, is delighted as it runs up and down the garden, and says “Pretty, pretty!” to every flower.
There ought always to be flowers in the school-room. The place where the happy child goes to learn should be made very cheerful. Pleasant things will make it so, and flowers are certainly very pleasant things. And then, they are very easily obtained. Scholars can bring them, and they can be put into vases where all can see them. Pictures would make a school-room look very pleasant, but they are too costly. Flowers are cheap, since they commonly cost only the trouble of gathering and bringing them to school.
Questions.—What is said about giving a bouquet to your teacher? Why are presents of flowers so pleasant to a sick person? What is said of flowers as ornaments? What of artificial flowers? Tell how we copy flowers in dress and in furniture. Are there some who do not like flowers? For what did God make flowers? How do very little children show that they like them? What is said about having flowers in the school-room?
If you love flowers you will like to know all that you can about them. It is just as it is when you love a person. You want to know all that you can about the friends that you love so well. And if you love flowers, you will like to know what I have to tell you about them.
You go out into the garden, and you see among all the flowers there a large red rose. Look at it, and see how many red leaves it has all folded together. How did that rose come there? That is plain enough, you will say—it grew there. And most grown people as well as children think that this is all that is to be said about it. But what is growing? Do you know how a rose grows? I will tell you something about this.
That rose was once a very little bud, such as you see here. Then it did not look any thing like a rose. It was a little green thing with nothing red in it. You would not suppose that it ever could turn into a rose, if you had not seen buds turn into roses before.
The little rose-bud becomes larger and larger every day. Soon it begins to open, as is represented here, and you see the red leaves of the flower all folded together. It spreads out these leaves after a little time, and now you see the full-blown rose.
Here is a representation of a rose in full bloom. How much larger it is than the little bud from which it came, and how different it is from it! A great many leaves it spreads out in its bosom. Sometimes the difference is greater than what you see here. Some kinds of roses are very large indeed, but their buds at the first are very small.
This rose was made. We commonly say that it grew, without thinking what growing is. It was made from something. There was something that came to the bud to make it into a rose. What was it that came to the bud? How did it come there? I will tell you.
The rose was made from a juice, or sap, as we call it. This sap kept coming to the bud all the time that it was growing larger, and then all the time that it was changing into a rose. We do not know how this sap can be made into such a beautiful red flower. This we can not understand. The wisest man in the world can not tell us how it is done. But God, who made all the flowers and every thing else, understands it.
But you will ask how the sap comes to the bud. You see that slender stem that holds the rose. There are little fine pipes in that stem, and the sap comes through these pipes. All the time that the bud is turning into a rose, the sap comes to it through these pipes in the stem, just as water comes through pipes to our houses. These pipes in the stem are very small, and there are a great many of them. They are so small that you can not see them, but they are large enough to let the sap run along through them.
If the sap should stop coming through these pipes to the bud, it could not become a rose. If you pick a bud, you know that it stops growing, and never becomes a rose. This is because no more sap can come to it through the pipes of the stem. It is just as no water can come into a house if the water-pipe be cut off outside.
The sap from which the rose is made we should suppose would be like the rose. But it is not. It is not red, as you see breaking the stem. It does not taste at all like the leaves of the rose.
It does not seem very wonderful that the little green bud should be made from the sap in the stem. But it does seem very strange that the bright-red leaves of the rose should be made from it. Suppose some one should take some stems, and bruise them, so as to get the sap out of them. Could he make a rose from this sap? Oh no. This can be done only in the bud. That is the rose-factory. The sap must go there to be made into a rose.
Questions.—Why do you want to know about flowers? Do most people think it plain how a rose-bud becomes a rose? How is the rose different from the bud? Is the rose made? What is it made from? How does the sap get to the bud? If you pick a bud, why does it not become a rose? Is the sap in the stem like the rose? Can any one make a rose from the sap?
I have told you about red roses. But all roses, you know, are not red. There are white and yellow roses. And some roses are a very light red, while others are a dark red. Now, how are all these different colors made?
If you ask a dyer how he gives cloths different colors, he will tell you that he dips them into different dyes. He has a dye in one place that gives a red color, and one in another place that gives a yellow color; and so for all the different colors. The roses are not colored in this way; they are not dipped into dyes. But the colors must come from something. From what do you think they come?
We do not know exactly how these colors are made. The sap seems to be the same in the stems of all the different roses. It is not yellow in the stem of the yellow rose, and red in the stem of the red rose. The stems of all the roses are green, and the buds at first are green. But in some way all the different colors are made from something. And as there is nothing there but the sap that comes in the stems, the colors must be made from this. Air and light have something to do with making the colors, but they are made from the sap.
I have told you only about roses. But there are many, very many other flowers with every variety of color. They are all made from the sap that comes to the buds through the stems. This is true of the flowers on the trees as well as of those that you see on stalks and bushes.
The sap is different in the different trees and plants. But in none of them can you find sap that is like the flowers that are made from it.
In some flowers you see different colors beautifully mixed together. These different colors are made from the same sap. In the garden-violet you see a purple and a yellow color. In the iris you see a purple, a yellow, and a blue. These three colors are very unlike, and yet they are made from the same sap that comes up the stem. In the China pinks you see a great variety of colors alongside of each other.
Sometimes the colors shade off into each other beautifully. You see this in the pink. Sometimes one color is put right upon another in streaks or in spots. You see stripes of color in tulips. In the tiger lily there are dark spots of a very different color from that reddish-brown upon which they are put.
How it is that out of the same sap one color is made in one part of a flower, and another color in another part, we do not know. Sometimes two entirely different colors are side by side. In one kind of poppy the leaves of the flower are white except on the very end, and there they are red. They look as if all their edges had been dipped in a red dye. Now how it is that the sap should make the flower white every where except on the tips of its leaves, and there make it red, we do not know.
Neither can we tell how one color is made to shade off or run into another color. This is often so nicely done, that you can not tell where one color begins and another ends. You see this in the apple-blossom. The reddish color runs off into a pure white, but there is no place where you can say the white begins.
The colors of flowers change some as they open. A flower is not exactly of the same color when it is partly opened as it is when its leaves are all spread out to the light. There is a vine called the cobea that has a singular change in the color of its flowers. When they first open they are a pale green. They are of this color when they are fully opened. But after a while they have a rich purple color. It is like the change of color that you see in some fruits. An orange, you know, is at first green; but when it is ripe, it is a bright yellow orange.
I might go on to tell you much more about the colors of flowers. But you can look for yourselves in the garden and in the field, and see how differently the colors are arranged in one flower and in another.
Questions.—Are roses of different colors? How does a dyer give different colors to cloth? Do we know how the colors of flowers are made? What are they made from? What is said of the great variety of colors in flowers? Mention some flowers in which different colors are alongside of each other. Is it strange that they are made from the same sap? What is said of one kind of poppy? What is said of the shading off of colors? Tell about the flower of the cobea.
There is another thing in the flower besides the color that is made from the sap. It is its perfume. How delightful this is in the rose! And how long it lasts! But you can smell none of it in the sap from which the rose is made. There is commonly very little odor in the stem through which the sap comes to a flower, and it is not at all like that which you smell in the flower itself.
The perfume is not in the stem; but that from which the perfume is made is there. Something is done to the sap as it comes to the flower to make it give out the perfume. Every fragrant flower is a perfume-factory.
Some flowers have no odor, while others smell very strong. The lilac and the syringa, you know, have a strong smell. They are quite pleasant in the open air; but when they are in a closed room they are disagreeable, because their odor is so strong.
There is no fragrance in many of our most beautiful flowers. This is true of the cactus in all its varieties. When you look at a large cactus blossom, so splendid in its colors, it seems to you that it must smell sweet. But if you put it to your nose, as a child is apt to do, you find that it has no smell. Then there are the elegant japonicas, of various colors, that have no fragrance. The showy red peonies in the garden look to a child so much like large red roses, that it seems to him as if they ought to have a pleasant smell. But they have none. Perhaps you have seen in the autumn some very bright scarlet flowers standing on a stalk in damp places. It is the cardinal flower. Some call it eye-bright. This elegant flower has no fragrance. And there is none in the fringed gentian, another beautiful wild flower of autumn. It seems enough for such flowers that they are so beautiful.
But there are some flowers that have both great beauty and delicious fragrance. This is true of most kinds of roses. Whenever any one gives you a rose, you put it up to your nose at once. You expect that it will smell sweet, of course; and you feel disappointed if it does not. The cape jessamine is one of the most beautiful of flowers, and, at the same time, it has a delightful fragrance. The pure clear white flower appears very beautiful among the glossy green leaves. In a southern climate it is one of the most splendid of flowers.
Most flowers have some odor. And the odors of the different flowers are all different from each other. If you were blindfolded, and a pink, a rose, an apple blossom, a pond lily, an orange blossom, and a clover-head, were put up to your nose, one after the other, you would know each of them by its smell. And so of other flowers. What a variety there is in the fragrance that the flowers in the garden and the field send forth into the air! What a multitude of different perfume-factories has our kind heavenly Father provided just to gratify us!
Sometimes a great many of these factories of one kind are together, and then the air is filled with the perfume they make. You will at once think of a clover-field. How sweet the fragrance as the wind blows over the field and brings it to you! All this perfume comes from millions of little factories. For each clover-head is a perfume-factory, as you may know if you pick one and smell it.
The fragrance from the flowers of the grape-vine is very delicious. It is of this that Solomon speaks when he says, “The vines with the tender grape give a good smell.” When the grape-vines are in bloom the air is filled with their fragrance; and yet the flowers are so small, and so near the color of the stem and the leaves, that you would not notice them, unless you looked particularly for them.
There are some flowers that have an unpleasant odor. Sometimes this is because they are poisonous, the odor making us avoid them, and thus saving us from danger. But in many cases we can not see any such reason for the unpleasant odor. Why it is that such a splendid flower as the crown imperial should smell so disagreeable we do not understand. One thing, however, is true: the bad-smelling plants are few, while God has given us a multitude of those that smell sweet.
Questions.—What else in the flower, besides color, is made from the sap? Is the perfume in the stem? Where is it made? Mention some flowers that have a strong smell. Mention some that are very handsome, and yet have no fragrance. Mention some that have both fragrance and beauty. What is said about the different odors of flowers? How does this show the goodness of God to us? Tell about the clover-field. What is said of the flowers of the grape-vine? What is said of flowers with a bad odor?
Flowers are of all kinds of shapes. The shape of the flower often gives it its name. Some are shaped like stars, and are called asters, the word in Latin for stars. There are many kinds of these asters that grow wild in the autumn. Some of them are blue, some purple, and some white. And then there are the China-asters that you see in the garden.
There is a beautiful wild flower called, from its shape, ladies’ tresses. And so, too, we have ladies’ ear-drops, and the lady’s slipper.
Some flowers are shaped like butterflies. This is the shape of the pea-blossom which you see here. A very beautiful flower it is, though people seldom think much about it. They think only of the peas which they are to gather by-and-by. There is one curious thing about the color of the pea-blossom. Sometimes, you know, it is white, and sometimes it is a purplish red. Now when it is red, you can see red spots all the way down the stalk, at the joints where the branches go off from it. It is as if the sap as it went up to color the blossom, left some of its red dye in these spots on the way. You see no such spots on the stalk when the flowers are white.
Here are the flowers of the lily of the valley. They are like little bells hanging from the stem. This is one of the sweetest of all flowers. The little blue-bells, so pretty, and yet so troublesome in the garden, have their name from their bell-shape. So also have the Canterbury bells.
Some flowers are cup-shaped. This shape gives its name to the bright yellow buttercup that you know so well. The cup-daffodil, as we call it, has the middle part of the flower in the shape of a cup. The cup part of it is quite deep. The flower is bent over. If it stood upright, its cup would be filled with water when it rains. The narcissus, too, which bends over like the cup-daffodil, has a little cup, as you see in the figure, in the middle of it. Its cup, you observe, is shallow. It is something like a bowl.
Here is a flower of a funnel or tunnel shape. We see this shape in the flowers of the cypress-vine, and of the tobacco-plant. The flower of the morning-glory, which you will see on page 41, has this shape quite perfectly. It looks very much like a tunnel.
The flower that you see here is one of the varieties of calceolaria. It hangs down like a bag, or pocket, having a round opening above. The blossom of which this is a drawing was of a bright yellow color with red spots on it. There are many varieties of this singular flower, having different colors, and different sizes.
The flower here represented is the wake-robin, or Indian turnip. It is found in rather damp and shady places. What you see is commonly called the flower, but it is not really so. It is a covering for the flowers of the plant, which are very small. They are on the lower part of that rounded stalk that stands up in the middle. This splendid covering or house for the little flowers is green in one variety, and of a dark purple in the other. In the beautiful calla the flowers are small, and are on a stalk like that in the wake-robin. That pure white trumpet-shaped thing that we so much admire is not really the flower, though it is called so.
Some flowers are shaped like a trumpet. This is the shape of the blossom of the trumpet-creeper. The blossom, you know, is very deep. The humming-bird is fond of going quite into it. I suppose he goes in after the honey in the bottom of the flower. I have sometimes caught this beautiful bird by grasping the blossom in my hand when he had fairly got into it. I only kept the trembling little creature long enough to let us see how beautiful he was, and how curiously his long bill was made, with its slender tongue, to gather the honey. I soon set him free, and he was off again as joyous and as busy as ever, going from flower to flower.
The blossom of the snap-dragon has a queer shape that gives it its name. By pressing it together sideways, you can make it open like a mouth, and there are little white things that look like teeth. And then, if you let go of it, this mouth snaps together.
You have often seen the golden rod by the road-side in the last of summer and in autumn. Its golden yellow blossoms grow on a tall stalk in such a way that its name seems a very proper one. It is truly a rod of golden flowers.
There are some flowers that are called compound. They are called so because each flower is made up of a great many flowers. The dandelion is a flower of this kind. Each blossom has a great number of flowers in it. These you can easily pick apart. Each one of these looks beautiful if you see it through a microscope.
The blossom of the clover is one of the same kind of flowers. The white daisy, too, or ox-eyed daisy, as some call it, that you see scattered over fields among the grass, is a compound flower. I have counted in one of these blossoms over six hundred flowers.
These flowers are in the yellow part in the middle, that has a row of white leaves all around it. They are very small. But when you look at them through a microscope, you can see that each one is a beautiful, perfect flower. So, then, there is a whole garden of flowers in one of these blossoms. If these six hundred flowers could be taken out and turned into large flowers, they would make very much such a show as six hundred yellow lilies would.
The mountain daisy, here represented, is a pretty little flower of the same kind. It has in its golden yellow bosom a multitude of little flowers close together, just as our common white daisy has. And around this yellow part there is a row of delicate leaves, sometimes reddish, and sometimes white. This is a favorite flower in England and Scotland, where it is very common in the fields. There has been a great deal of poetry written about it. Burns, the great poet of Scotland, has some sweet verses to this “wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower,” as he calls it. Here are some lines that some one has written about it.
Very pretty poetry this is, but I think the poet is wrong in making this modest little flower praise itself.
The flowers on many trees hang down, as represented in this figure, in tassels. The flowers of the willow hang in this way. There are a great many flowers in each tassel. In the figure, in one of the tassels the flowers are fully open, and in the other they are not. Sometimes they are very delicate. They are in the black alder. It is curious to see how different they look when the flowers are open and when they are not. When they are open, they look beautiful, as seen through a microscope. When the chestnut-trees are in blossom, their tassels, hanging in clusters, give them a very rich appearance.
You have seen in this chapter that the variety of shapes in flowers is very great. It is almost without limit. Now the Creator makes all this variety of form for the same reason that he gives to flowers such a variety of colors. It is to feast our eyes and make us happy.
Questions.—Mention some of the shapes of flowers spoken of in the first of the chapter. Tell about the pea-blossom. Mention some flowers that are shaped like bells. Mention some that are cup-shaped. Mention some that are shaped like a tunnel. Tell about the calceolaria. Tell about the Indian turnip and the calla. What is said of the trumpet-creeper? Of the snap-dragon? Of the golden rod? What are compound flowers? Mention some of them. Tell about the white daisy. Also the mountain daisy. Mention some trees that have their flowers in tassels. Tell about these tassels. Why has God given such variety of shape to flowers?
Flowers have habits, or ways of acting, just as people do. I will tell you about some of them.
All flowers naturally turn toward the light, as if they loved it. You can see this if you watch plants that are standing near a window. The flowers will all be bent toward the light if you let the pots stand just in the same way all the time. By turning the pots a little every day or two while the blossoms are opening, you can make the flowers look in different directions.
There are some flowers that shut themselves up at night as if to go to sleep, and open again in the morning. Tulips do this. I was once admiring in the morning some flowers that were sent to me the evening before by a lady. Among them were some tulips, and out of one of these, as it opened, flew a bumble-bee. A lazy, dronish bee he must have been to be caught in this way as the flower was closing itself for the night. Or, perhaps he had done a hard day’s work in gathering honey, and just at night was so sleepy that he stayed too long in the tulip, and so was shut in. A very elegant bed the old bee had that night. I wonder if he slept any better than he would have done if he had been in his homely nest.
The pond-lily closes its pure white leaves at night as it lies upon its watery bed. But it unfolds them again in the morning. How beautiful it looks as it is spread out upon the water in the sunlight! The little mountain daisy that I told you about in the last chapter, is among the flowers that close at night. But it is as bright as ever on its “slender stem” when it wakes up in the morning. When it shuts itself up it is a little round green ball, and looks something like a pea. You would not see it in the midst of the grass if you did not look for it. But look the next morning, and the ball is opened, and shows “a golden tuft within a silver crown.” And very beautiful it is when there are so many of the daisies together that the grass is spangled with them in the bright sun. It is supposed that this flower was at first called “day’s eye,” because it opens its eye at the day’s dawn, and after a while it became shortened to daisy.
The golden flowers of the dandelion are shut up every night. They are folded up so closely in their green coverings, that they look like buds that have never yet been opened. The blossoms of the salsify, or vegetable oyster, close in the same manner, but not at the same time. They close always at noon. In the morning their tall, straight stalks make quite a brilliant appearance, each one having a deep purple flower at its top. All these are shut up in the afternoon, and you see at the top of each stalk a large pointed bud. The flowers of this plant are very much like the dandelion, both when closed and when open. The seeds, also, are very similar, as you will see in another chapter, and make together, around the top of the stalk, a similar feathery globe.
There is one curious habit which the dandelion has. When the sun is very hot it closes itself up to keep from wilting. It is in this way sheltered in its green covering from the sun. It sometimes, when the weather is very hot, shuts itself up as early as nine o’clock in the morning.
Some flowers hang down their heads at night as if they were nodding in their sleep. But in the morning they lift them up again to welcome the light.
Some flowers have a particular time to open. The evening primrose does not open till evening, and hence comes its name. The flower called four o’clock opens at that hour in the afternoon. There is a flower commonly called go-to-bed-at-noon, that always opens in the morning and shuts up at noon.
Most flowers last for some time. But there are some that last only a few hours. The red flowers of the delicate and rich cypress-vine open in the morning, and in the afternoon they close up, never to open again. But there are always some buds to open every day. It is delightful to one who loves flowers to see every morning a new set of these bright blossoms appear among the fine dark-green leaves of this vine.
Questions.—What is said of flowers turning to the light? What do some flowers do at night? Tell about the bumble-bee. What is said of the pond-lily? What of the mountain daisy? What of the dandelion? What is said of the time of opening of some flowers? Tell about the flowers of the cypress-vine.
You have often seen the flowers of the morning-glory. These last only from early in the morning to noon, or a little after noon. In the afternoon they are all closed, and the vines look very dull without any flowers on them. But look the next morning, and you will see a plenty of these beautiful flowers. They open before most people are out of their beds. And, just as I told you about the cypress-vine, there is a new set of them every day.
It is curious to see in what way the blossom of the morning-glory opens and then shuts itself up to die. If you look in the afternoon you will find here and there a bud shaped as you see in this figure. The flower part of it, you observe, is twisted at its pointed end in a spiral manner; that is, something like a cork-screw. This bud will be an open flower the next morning.
On the following page you see the flower as it looks when it is fully opened. There are ribs running up from the lower part of the flower. Each of these ribs comes to a point at the edge. They give firmness to the blossom. They are its frame-work, its timbers. Without these ribs it could not stand like a cup on its stem, as it does now, but would hang loosely down. The open spread part of the flower is very thin, and the ribs are to it what the whalebones are to an umbrella.
In this figure you see how the flower looks as it is partly closed. The points of the ribs are all turned in toward the middle of the flower. They bend in more and more, and after a while the flower wilts and dies. Now it is curious that the ribs of the flower should be folded so differently when it closes from what they are before it opens. Before it opens they are folded in a spiral form, as you see in the figure in the preceding page. When it closes, we would suppose that they would fold up in the same form. But they do not. They bend straight over, and the points come together in the middle of the flower.
There are some flowers that open only at night. That splendid flower, the night-blooming cereus, is one of them. And it opens only once. It lets us see its beauty only a few hours, and then it wilts and dies. It is a very large flower, and its opening is commonly watched for with great eagerness. It is a rare flower, and it is only now and then that we can get an opportunity of seeing it. It is very fragrant. It opens commonly quite late in the evening, and shuts itself up the latter part of the night. It never lets the light of day into its bosom. It makes us feel almost sad that so beautiful a flower lasts so short a time. We should feel really sad if most flowers did not last longer than this.
Through spring, summer, and autumn, we have a succession of flowers of every kind. Some last but a little while, and some feast our eyes for a long time. They come one after another. Each has its own season, and opens at its appointed time every year. In this succession of flowers we are never without some of them before us till the cold weather of winter comes again. God has thus kindly provided us with beautiful things to look upon, in the garden and in the field, through all the warmer months of the year.
In the spring the flowers are small and delicate, but are generally quite fragrant. In the summer we have very many more flowers than in spring or autumn. They have every variety of color and shape. They are commonly very fragrant, so that the air is filled with pleasant odors. In autumn the flowers generally have bright colors, and are very showy; but few of them have any fragrance.
Questions.—How are the flowers of the morning-glory like those of the cypress-vine? Tell about the bud of the morning-glory; also about the flower when it is open, its shape, and its ribs; also about the way in which it shuts up. What is said of the night-blooming cereus? Tell about the succession of flowers. How are the flowers of the spring, and summer, and autumn different?
Flowers are made chiefly for us to look at. It is to gratify our eyes, as I have before told you, that the Creator has made them so beautiful, and has given to them such a variety of shape and color. But they are good for something else besides this. Many different animals get their food from them. These animals are very small, and need but little food; but that little they get from flowers.
You see many different kinds of insects about most flowers. Most of these insects, we suppose, live upon the honey that they find there. We know that some do, for we see them gathering it. We see the bees do this. The busy little honey-bee goes from flower to flower, and gets a little honey from each. When he has gathered as much as he well can carry, off he flies to lay it up in the hive. A great many bees there are in one hive; and each bringing continually his little load, they after a while lay up a large amount of honey.