A VEGETABLE TIMEPIECE. 19

entirely in a dormant state. From these facts he
formed his theory of the sleep of plants, and
proved that it occurred at regular periods, like
that of animals. This discovery gave him the idea
of forming a sort of vegetable timepiece, in which
the hours of the day were marked by the opening
and closing of certain flowers; and in the same
manner he formed a rural calendar for the regula-
tion of the labours of husbandry. The tables in thig
“Calendarium Flore,” as it was designated, were
formed from observations made on the common
plants of Sweden, in the garden at Upsala, in 1755.
Mrs Hemans’ pretty lines on this subject may pro-
bably recur to the mind of the reader :—

‘Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,
By the opening and the folding flowers
That laugh in the summer’s day.
Yet is not life, in its real flight,
Mark’d thus—even thus—on earth,
By the closing of one hope’s delight
And another’s gentle birth?
Oh! let us live so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave
A lingerer still for the sunset hour-—
A charm for the shaded eve.”