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.
Compound 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.
Ox-eyed daisy.
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.
Mountain daisy.
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.
“I’m a pretty little thing,
Always coming with the spring;
In the meadows green I’m found,
Peeping just above the ground,
And my stalk is covered flat
With a white and yellow hat.
“Little maiden, when you pass
Lightly o’er the tender grass,
Step aside, and do not tread
On my meek and lowly head,
For I always seem to say,
Chilly winter’s gone away.”
Very pretty poetry this is, but I think the poet is wrong in making this modest little flower praise itself.
Tassels of the willow, alder, etc.
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.
Why flowers have such variety of shapes.
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?
CHAPTER VII.
HABITS OF FLOWERS.
Flowers have habits, or ways of acting, just as people do. I will tell you about some of them.
Flowers turning to the light.
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.
The bumble-bee in the tulip.
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.
Mountain daisies.
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.
Dandelions.
Salsify.
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