Martin Fone takes a look at one of the most ingenious uses of plants ever imagined by mankind: Linnaeus’s Flower Clock.
In the 4th century BC Androsthenes of Thasos, one of Alexander the Great’s admirals, noticed that the leaves of the tamarind tree drooped at night to protect its fruits. Francis Bacon, in Sylva sylvarum (1626), observed that some plants including marigolds, wartwort, and mallow ‘rejoice at the presence of the sun and mourn at the absence…
