Can I make a ‘Flower Clock’?
Can I use it to tell time?
I was reading recently about time and how we refer to it, measure it and use it in our daily lives. It was coming from a point of view that time is an artificial construct, and we create ways to use it more now in our daily lives - which are governed mostly by hourly events, than in the past, when life flowed more with the passage of the seasons. It argued that for most of history, our lives and societies were governed more by the ebb and flow of nature. We’ve lost the methods by which we used nature to meter and regulate our lives.
As far back as the Romans, we still had the need to try to refer to some point in a day for conducting commerce, society and even war. So we had the sundial to help us. Our star governed our lives. But there was the intriguing notion that we could somehow use the earthbound clockworks of nature - plants or animals, to even tell the time of a day, not just months or seasons. So it was wondered, can we tell the time of day by the blooming of our flowers?
Can you make a ‘Flower Clock’ that will tell you what time of day it is? (Don’t be confused by flower clocks you may see pictures of on Instagram for sale to hang on your wall. Those are dry flower arrangements that may not be of any help to you in your garden). If you are interested in creating your own garden which will tell you what time it is as you take a peaceful walk amongst the blooms, then you will have to research the flowers and the times they bloom for your specific area. Local conditions will dictate the hourly blossoms.
Can you make a ‘Flower Clock’ that will tell you what time of day it is? (Don’t be confused by flower clocks you may see pictures of on Instagram for sale to hang on your wall. Those are dry flower arrangements that may not be of any help to you in your garden). If you are interested in creating your own garden which will tell you what time it is as you take a peaceful walk amongst the blooms, then you will have to research the flowers and the times they bloom for your specific area. Local conditions will dictate the hourly blossoms.
Carolus (Karl) Linnaeus, the famous Swedish geneticist - father of modern taxonomy, is widely credited as the originator of this idea.
Carl Linnaeus was born in the Swedish province of Smaland in 1707, well over 300 years ago. At this time, botany was an important part of medical training, as doctors had to be familiar with many types of plants and their medicinal effects in order to treat their patients. Plants had only a description in Latin at that time. He finished his medical degree in the Netherlands at the age of 30. Afterwards he enrolled at the University of Leiden and wrote his famous SYSTEMA NATUARE - a new way of classifying living organisms. Over the years he revised this classification system, which soon became a huge multi-volume work. So the Linnean Society of London was founded to pursue his scientific work.
Carl Linnaeus was born in the Swedish province of Smaland in 1707, well over 300 years ago. At this time, botany was an important part of medical training, as doctors had to be familiar with many types of plants and their medicinal effects in order to treat their patients. Plants had only a description in Latin at that time. He finished his medical degree in the Netherlands at the age of 30. Afterwards he enrolled at the University of Leiden and wrote his famous SYSTEMA NATUARE - a new way of classifying living organisms. Over the years he revised this classification system, which soon became a huge multi-volume work. So the Linnean Society of London was founded to pursue his scientific work.
Linnaeus had the idea to take advantage of the fact that plants open or close their flowers at particular times of the day to accurately indicate the time. According to his notes, he developed the floral clock garden in 1748 when he was teaching at the University in Uppsala.
He might not have been the first person though to observe that various plants open at specific times during a day. As early as Alexander the Great, one of his admirals - Androthenes, noted that the Tamarind tree leaves opened in the day and drooped closed at night. There were many more that observed that plants behaved differently over a daily (diurnal) cycle (e.g.- Pliny the Elder and Albertus Magnus). In fact most living things have built in circadian (around a day) rhythms that govern when we sleep, when we wake, when we eat, etc.
He might not have been the first person though to observe that various plants open at specific times during a day. As early as Alexander the Great, one of his admirals - Androthenes, noted that the Tamarind tree leaves opened in the day and drooped closed at night. There were many more that observed that plants behaved differently over a daily (diurnal) cycle (e.g.- Pliny the Elder and Albertus Magnus). In fact most living things have built in circadian (around a day) rhythms that govern when we sleep, when we wake, when we eat, etc.
But in 1751, Linnaeus seems to be the first scientist to publish an observable table of specific plants that open and close during a 24 hour cycle - hence, a Flower Clock! There are major flaws with his clock of course. Located in Uppsala, Sweden, his observations of times and plants were totally dependent on his local conditions, i.e.- latitude (the further north you are located on the planet, the later flowers will bloom, also local weather conditions and seasonal variations apply). But his thorough list of 46 specific plants and their hours of bloom, sparked a sensation to replicate it all over the world. It is said that he never tried to plant such a garden himself, but there is a garden that has been planted by Uppsala students that can be seen today in his honor.
Trying to plant your own floral clock depends on so many variables. Of course, first is location, and then also elevation and climate. Accordingly, you have to test the plants when they open and close during the day. Plants have different survival strategies to open and attract special insects for pollination when it is advantageous for them. If you have five different plants, you might have five different opening and closing times. So before planting anything you have to bring along a lot of time and a lot of patience.
If successful you might look out the window, look at your flowers and know it is about 7.20 in the morning because only one flower is willing to welcome one particular insect.
If successful you might look out the window, look at your flowers and know it is about 7.20 in the morning because only one flower is willing to welcome one particular insect.
Nevertheless, I found it a very interesting thought to tell time according to the hints nature is producing in front of you. The idea itself is inspirational. In fact, it inspired the french composer Jean René Désiré Françaix in 1959, to compose his L'horloge de flore (Flower Clock), for solo oboe and orchestra.
So if you feel confident in your gardening skills and want to take up the challenge of creating your own local Flower Clock, it might just add a new dimension to your day.
If you are lucky enough to be attempting to get your children interested in gardening, there is a nice video on YouTube posted by the Linnean Society explaining the concept (and difficulty) of telling time with plants, which your children would enjoy - and you might learn something about insects as well:
https://www.linnean.org/learning/media/videos/curious-cases/flower-power-time
So if you feel confident in your gardening skills and want to take up the challenge of creating your own local Flower Clock, it might just add a new dimension to your day.
If you are lucky enough to be attempting to get your children interested in gardening, there is a nice video on YouTube posted by the Linnean Society explaining the concept (and difficulty) of telling time with plants, which your children would enjoy - and you might learn something about insects as well:
https://www.linnean.org/learning/media/videos/curious-cases/flower-power-time
Linnean Society in London
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