Telling time by flowers

Came across this Hibiscus mutabilis flower few days back. It starts the day as pure white and slowly turns pink to end the day as dark pink.

Morning

Around Noon

Afternoon

While this was a new way of being able to say time looking at flower to me, I was learning for few weeks now that flowers do tell time. There are Morning glory and day flowers that you can see in the morning, some prefer Sun at its best and some wait till nightfall. I found diamond flowers and few others display only if Sun is shining well. One flower that I found showing such tendencies was below. Dont know its ID though. (and probably it wasnt wild plant here but existed as decorative plant.)

 

Overall, while I haven't yet managed to know and remember flowering times of different flowers around me but have learned one basic thing about taking a flower photo. If you see a flower but don't have appropriate lens for it, either go back and get the lens immediately if you can or note time you are seeing it and come back around same time. It has happened few times that I noticed a flower at one time and when I went back in few hours with appropriate lens, it has wound up its display for the day. and what is worse, for those macro sized weeds, its sometimes difficult to see closed flower and that leaves you wondering if you remembered location right. (ok, I should be able to identify plant and not just flower, but right now, it seems too much too fast.)

As I watched flowers, got curious about them and some googling gives me hint of how complex decision making based on lots of parameters must be employed by a plant to decide its flowering attributes - season, time of the day, colour, smell etc. manipulating which it strives to attract its pollinators and achieve best reproduction results. and it may not be as simple as "okay, my pollinators are moths, so my flowering time should be night when they are active, and let me not bother much about colour as in the dark its not going be visible anyway so simple white is best but fragrance can be helpful so give more weight to it, and that's it. I am done." There could be more complex strategies employed that may promote flower constancy among its pollinators or more dynamic decisions like whether or not to participate in synchronised flowering. And, these all are just for one of the life event - flowering. When I try to think of all the things they must be doing to optimise- starting from when to germinate to how to make best of light and water, how to react to changing temperature, humidity, predator attacks, how to forge co-operative alliances and what not, I remember Asimov's 'Each an explorer' - One of my favourite short stories from him. though of course, there are many Asimov's stories that fall in that category. 

P.S. If you haven't read the story, I recommend you don't read wikipedia or other other spoiler text giving out story outline. Asimov is best read in his own words.

P.P.S. I am aware that some well meaning visitor here may want to suggest I understand evolution a bit before talking like in last para. at this point however, I just want to apologise for his/her irritation and clarify that its not that I don't understated what 'the theory of evolution' says, its just that I don't believe in it. Someday I may come back to it and for now, take this as just representing how awestruck I am as I look at life.

P.P.P.S I actually managed to talk about this 'evolution' thing three years after this post - here.