CHAPTER VIII.

MORE ABOUT THE HABITS OF FLOWERS.

[Sidenote: Buds and flowers of the morning-glory.]

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.

[Sidenote: Closing of the flower of the morning-glory.]

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.

[Sidenote: Night-blooming cereus.]

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.

[Sidenote: The succession of flowers.]

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?