{"id":507,"date":"2014-04-27T16:23:50","date_gmt":"2014-04-27T16:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/?p=507"},"modified":"2014-04-27T16:23:50","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T16:23:50","slug":"linnaeus-flower-clock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/linnaeus-flower-clock\/","title":{"rendered":"Linnaeus&#8217; Flower Clock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a novel way to create your own timepiece &#8211; if you have a garden!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_514\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-514\" class=\"wp-image-514 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/four-o-clocks.jpg\" alt=\"Four O'Clocks\" width=\"250\" height=\"204\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-514\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mirabilis jalapa &#8211; The Four O&#8217;Clock flower<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In 1751, Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus suggested that by planting flowers which\u00a0open and close at different times of the day in a particular pattern, you could tell the time\u00a0just by observing the petals.<\/p>\n<p>Plants have biological clocks which are linked to the circadian rhythm that regulates\u00a0processes such as metabolism, release of fragrances and movement &#8211; which is roughly\u00a0based on 24-hour intervals.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Linnaeus&#8217; theory was published in Philosophia Botanica where he also described three\u00a0groups of flowers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Meteorici<\/em> &#8211; flowers which change their opening and closing times according to the\u00a0weather conditions<\/li>\n<li><em>Tropici<\/em> &#8211; flowers which change their times for opening and closing according to the\u00a0length of the day<\/li>\n<li><em>Aequinoctales<\/em> &#8211; flowers which have fixed times for opening and closing (unaffected\u00a0by the weather conditions)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Linnaeus himself never got to plant a flower clock but some botanical gardeners in the\u00a0early 19th Century would often arrange plants in a circle to form the clock face of the\u00a0flowerbed, which was divided into 12 segments to represent the hours of each day. Each\u00a0segment was then planted with flowers that opened or closed within that hour of time.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some examples of plants and their opening and closing times:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_518\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-518\" class=\"wp-image-518 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/carolus-linnaeus-e1398614745545.jpg\" alt=\"Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)\" width=\"200\" height=\"244\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-518\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>6 a.m. Spotted Cat&#8217;s Ear, Flax<br \/>\n7 a.m. African Marigold, Lettuce<br \/>\n8 a.m. Mouse-Ear Hawkweed, Scarlet Pimpernel, Dandelion<br \/>\n9 a.m. Calendula, Catchfly, Prickly Sow<br \/>\n10 a.m. California Poppies<br \/>\n11 a.m. Star of Bethlehem<br \/>\nNoon Goatsbeard, Blue Passion Flowers, Morning Glories<br \/>\n1 p.m. Carnation, Childing Pink<br \/>\n2 p.m. Afternoon Squill, Poppy<br \/>\n3 p.m. Calendula closes<br \/>\n4 p.m. Purple Hawkweed, Four O&#8217;Clocks, Cat&#8217;s Ear<br \/>\n5 p.m. Night Flowering Catchfly, Coltsfoot<br \/>\n6 p.m. Moonflowers, White water lily<br \/>\n7 p.m. White Campion, Daylily<br \/>\n8 p.m. Night Flowering Cereus, Catchfly<\/p>\n<p>The accuracy of the flower clock will be affected by weather changes, seasons and\u00a0location &#8211; so although it would look pretty impressive in your garden, it&#8217;s probably wise to\u00a0not throw away your watch just yet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a novel way to create your own timepiece &#8211; if you have a garden! In 1751, Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus suggested that by planting flowers which\u00a0open and close at different times of the day in a particular pattern, you could tell the time\u00a0just by observing the petals. Plants have biological clocks which are linked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturnsports.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}