The idea of floral clocks emerged in the 18th century. Carl Linnaeus, Swedish botanist and father of modern taxonomy, observed that flowers opened and closed under three sets of different circumstances:
- some open and close in response to weather
- some open and close in response to length of day
- some have set times for opening and closing unaffected by weather or day length
Intrigued by the observation that some flowers adhered to a clocklike fixed schedule of opening and closing, Linnaeus introduced the idea of floral clocks in Philosophia Botanica in 1751. He researched the opening and closing times of native wildflowers he observed in landscapes around Sweden and illustrated a circular living clock placing the flowering plants at the hour of the day they opened.
Over the centuries scientists have discovered much more about the circadian rhythms of plants first noticed by Linnaeus. A complex set of factors combine to signal a flower’s opening and closing including cell biology, light, temperature, weather, and evolutionary adaptations.
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