The botanic garden. A poem in two parts. Containing the Economy of vegetation; and the loves of the plants; with philosophical notes / / by Erasmus Darwin.

  • Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802.
Date:
1825
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The botanic garden. A poem in two parts. Containing the Economy of vegetation; and the loves of the plants; with philosophical notes / / by Erasmus Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS. CANTO IV. Now the broad Sun liis golden orb unshrouds, Flames in the west, and paints the parted clouds ; O’er heaven’s wide arch refracted lustres flow, And bend in air the many-colour’d bow.— —The tuneful Goddess on the glowing sky Fix’d in mute ecstacy her glistening eye ; And then her lute to sweeter tones she strung, And swell’d with softer chords the Paphian song; Tong aisles of oaks return’d the silver sound, And amorous echoes talk’d along the ground; Pleased Lichfield listen’d from her sacred bowers, 11 Bow’d her tall groves, and shook her stately towers. “ Nymph! not for thee the radiant day re- turns, Nymph! not for thee the golden solstice burns, Refulgent Cerea !—at the dusky hour She seeks with pensive step the mountain-bower, Pleased Lichfield. 1. 11. The scenery described at the beginning of the first part, or Economy of Vegetation, is taken from a botanic garden about a mile from Lichfield. Cerea. 1. 15. Cactus grandiflorus, or Cereus. Twenty males, one female. This flower is a native of Jamaica and Vex*acrux. It expands a most exquisitely beautiful corol, and emits a most fragrant odour for a few hours in the night, and then closes to open no more. The flower is nearly a foot in diameter; the inside of the calyx of a splendid yellow, and the numerous petals of a pure white: it begins to open about seve**. or eight o’clock in the evening, and closes before sun-rise in the morning. Martyn’s Letters, p. 294. The Cistus labdaniferus, and many other flowers, lose their petals after hav- ing been a few hours expanded in the day-time; for in these plants the stigma is soon impreg- nated by the numerous anthers: in many flowers of the Cistus labdaniferus 1 observed Bright as the blush of rising morn, and warms The dull cold eye of Midnight with her charms. There to the skies she lifts her pencill’d brows, Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows; 20 Eyes the white zenith; counts the suns that roll Their distant fires, and blaze around the pole ; Or mai-ks where Jove directs his glittering car I O’er heaven’s blue vault,—herself a brighter star. —There as soft zephyrs sweep with pausing airs Thy snowy neck, and part thy shadowy hairs, Sweet Maid of Night! to Cynthia’s sober beams Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish’d bosom gleams. In crowds around thee gaze the admiring swains, And guard in silence the enchanted plains ; SO j Drop the still tear, or breathe the impassion’d sigh, And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye. two or three of the stamens were perpetually bent into contact with the pistil. The Nyctanthes, called Arabian Jasmine, is another flower, which expands a beautiful corol, and gives out a most delicate perfume during the night, and not in the day, in its native coun- try, whence its name; botanical philosophers have not yet explained this wonderful property ; per- haps the plant sleeps during the day as some animals do; and its odoriferous glands only emit their fragrance during the expansion of the petals; that is, during its waking hours; the Geranium triste has the same property of giving up its fragrance only in the night. The flowers of the Cucurbita lagenaria are said to close when the sun shines ppon them. In our climate many flowers, as tragopogon, and hibis- cus, close their flowers before the. hottest part of the day comes on; and the flowers of some species of cucubalus, and Silene, viscous cam- pion, are closed all day; but when the sun leaves them they expand, and emit a very agreeable scent; whence such plants are termed noctiflora.