The leaves, which ordinarily
spread out flat, partly close in bright sunshine and "go to
sleep" at night, not to expose their sensitive upper surfaces to
fierce heat in the first case, and to cold by radiation in the
second. "Lifeless things may be moved or acted on," says Asa
Gray; "living beings move and act - plants less conspicuously,
but no less really than animals. In sharing the mysterious gift
of life they share some of its simpler powers."
The PARTRIDGE PEA or LARGE-FLOWERED SENSITIVE PLANT (C.
Chamaecrista) likewise goes to sleep; the ten to fifteen pairs of
leaflets which, with a terminal one, make up each pinnate leaf,
slowly turning their outer edges uppermost after sunset, and
overlapping as they flatten themselves against their common stem
until the entire aspect of the plant is changed. By day the
expanded foliage is feathery, fine, acacia-like; at night the
bushy, branching, spreading plant, that measures only a foot or
two high, appears to produce nothing but pods.
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