Struggleth with life, e'en as the fruitage ripe
Doth wrestle with its stem; and then both fall
To earth from whence both sprang.
                                     Yet, mortal, hear,
And chiefly note, O man, the fruit shall die
Whilst thou endure the vast eternity.
Let then thine end be such thou may'st rejoice
In the full garner of thy Master's choice.

CLOCKS MADE OF FLOWERS.

FLOWERING, botanists tell us, usually takes
place at a definite period of a plant's existence,
and this precise and important epoch is
regulated by certain laws, hitherto unexplained, but
called periodicity. Of all the propensities of
plants, none seem more strange than their
different periods of blossoming; some producing
their flowers in winter or at the very first dawning
of spring, many when the spring is
established, some at midsummer, and others not
until autumn. One of the earliest blossoms
is the snowdrop, which has been described as
                           The herald of the flowers
Sent with its small white flag of truce to plead
For its beleaguered brethren; supplicantly
It prays stern Winter to withdraw his troop
Of winds and blustering storms, and having won
A smile of promise from its pitying foe,
Returns to tell the issue of its errand
To the expectant host.

The small, white blossom of the witlow grass,
which is so delicately minute that a specimen of
both flower and foliage could be enclosed in a
circle not larger than a lady's ring, is a
herald of the flowers, peeking up above the
snow during the month of February. The
black-rooted hellebore (Helleborus niger), on
the contrary, chooses to flower last of all the
plants, and waits until Christmas, when, heedless
of the cold, it sends forth its clear white
blossoms, thus winning for itself the name of
the Christmas rose.

Gilbert White illustrates the law of
periodicity by the vernal and autumnal crocus
(Crocus satirus), which have such an affinity
that the best botanists only make varieties of
the same genus, of which there is only one
species, not being able to discern any difference
in the corolla, or in its internal structure. Yet
the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the
beginning of March at farthest, and often in
very rigorous weather; and cannot be retarded
but by some violence offered: while the autumnal
(the saffron) defies the influence of the
spring and summer, and will not blow till most
plants begin to fado and run to seed. This
circumstance is one of the wonders of the creation,
little noticed because a common occurrence; yet
it would be as difficult of explanation as the
most stupendous phenomenon in nature.

Periodicity is supposed to be chiefly dependent
on the temperature of the climate in which
the plants grow; because it is observed that,
when transferred to other climates where
the seasons are reversed, they have for some
time a tendency to flower at their accustomed
period of the year, but ultimately accommodate
themselves to the new seasons. However, in
the same climate, some individuals of a species,
from a peculiar idiosyncrasy, regularly flower
earlier than others. Decandolle mentions a
horse chesnut-tree at Geneva which always
flowered a month before its neighbours. On
the twentieth of March, one thousand eight
hundred and fourteen, when the First Napoleon
made his memorable return from the
island of Elba, a horse chesnut-tree in the
Tuileries Garden was found in full blossom, and,
ever since, the Parisians have watched this tree
with interest every spring for the first appearances
of flowering. Within the last few years,
however, another and a younger tree has eclipsed
he "marronnier du vingt Mars," by blossoming
three or four days before it. Matter-of-fact
persons, who have examined this Bonapartist
tree, assert that its flowering is not due to any
patriotic feeling, but is owing to the particularly
favourable position which it occupies; being
planted where it can catch every ray of sun, and
where it is protected from the cold winds.

As the flowering of different species takes
place at different seasons of the year, so also
any species open their flowers only at certain
hours of the day.

This periodicity of plants in opening and
closing, their blossoms has enabled many
ingenious botanists, including Linnaeus, to form
floral dials or clocks, by means of which the
different hours of the day may be ascertained.
Commencing at three o'clock in the morning
(for no flower wakes up before the lark),
the goat's-beard blossom forms one of the
best floral indices of the hours of the
day, opening at sunrise and closing at noon.
This plant, while flowering, is easily recognised
by its sea-green stem, two feet high, and by its
long green leaves, almost as slender as young
wheat, which distinguish it at once from the
other species of compound flowers, with their
variously-cut foliage. After blossoming, the
plant may be known by its round downy "ball of
light brown seeds, to "which the plant owes its
rustic name of goat's-beard. It is also called
oonday flower, jack-go-to-bed-at-noon, and star
of Jerusalem.

The daisies sprinkling our meadows, received
their pretty name from their opening only to
the morning light, and many persons have felt
like Chaucer:

          And whanne that it is eve, I renne blithe
          As soon as ever the sunne ginneth west,
          To seene this flowre, how it will go to rest.

He also says:

          That well by reason men calle it maie,
          The daisie or els the eie of the daie.

And Spencer in the Faerie Queene speaks of—

           The little dazy that at evening closes.

The common centaury (Erythraca centaurium)
is another plant which wakes up with
the sun. It is a frequent flower on heaths, and
on cliffs by the sea, from June to September;
but, in cloudy weather, the beautiful
rose and golden coloured blossoms are all closed