Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1914 — FIRE FLASHED FROM FLOWERS [ARTICLE]

FIRE FLASHED FROM FLOWERS

Natural Wonder That Has Not Been Accorded the Recognition It Deserves. The most wonderful, it might almost be said spiritual, attribute of flowers is neither their beauty of color or form nor their fragrance, but, strangely enough, a mysterious radiance that, like the aureola which artists represent as radiating from the heads of apostles or of angels, sometimes surrounds them, writes J. Carter Beard. It is strange that this flower is so little known and so seldom noticed. The best time to watch for and to witness the emission of flower-fire is just after sunset of a warm day, when the atmosphere is perfectly dry and clear. On the contrary, if the air is dense or the day has been rainy, nothing of the kind can be seen. The light emitted from flowers is sometimes continuous, but, oftener, perhaps, represents itself in flashes and flickerlngs like the sparks from a piece of paper that has been electrified. The duration of the light varies according to the state of the atmosphere and the sort of flowers that are under observation.

A daughter of Linnaeus is credited with having been the first, as long ago as 1762, to have observed these luminous emanations. While seated alone in her father’s garden on a fine, warm summer night, her attention was attracted to a cluster of the common naturtiums, whose flowers shone with iridescent lustre amid the surrounding gloom. Captivated by the charming novelty of the spectacle she repeated her nocturnal visit to the flowers a number of times, and never once failed to witness the gleam of the nasturtiums. Numerous other flowers, many of which can be found tn our gardens, are discovered to be self-luminous after exposure to the strong, sustained light of the summer sun; for not only do groups of nasturtiums exhibit the phenomenon, but the corolla off the common sunflower, the dahlia, the tuberose, the yellow Illy and Indeed a number of blossoms not named here. —Christian Endeavor World.