Note 1460 — Chapter II · GARDEN AND ORCHARD.
Reading edition
Colum. de Cult. Hortor. 253. Cardan in his treatise De Subtilitate having undertaken to assign the cause why certain flowers bend towards the sun, his antagonist, J. C. Scaliger, remarks upon his philosophy as follows:—“De floribus, qui ad Solem convertuntur non pessime ais: tenue humidum ad Solis calorem, se habere, ut corii ad ignem. Cæterum adhuc integra restat quæstio. Rosis enim tenuissimum esse humidum testantur omnia. Non convertuntur tamen. Platonici flores quosdam etiam Lunæ dicunt esse familiares: qui sane huic Sideri, sicut illi suo canant hymnos, sed mortalibus ignotos auribus.” Exercit. 170, § 2. “The cause (of the bowing of the heliotrope) is somewhat obscure; but I take it to be no other, but that the part against which the sun heateth, waxeth more faint and flaccid in the stalk, and thereby less able to support the flower.” Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum § 493.