Flowers that bloom by night could hardly be suspected of that vanity which Rhodora has been made to confess by Emerson in his beautiful lines to this flower. Our evening primrose does not bloom in the dark hours for mere sentiment or moonshine, but from a nature which lies, figuratively speaking, much nearer her heart. “Often when the nights are very dark,” says an old writer, “her petals emit a mild phosphorescent light, and look as if illuminated for a holiday. And he who does not fear to be out in her mild and lovely haunt may see a variety of nocturnal ephemeræ hovering around the lighted petals, or sipping at the flowery fountains, while others rest among the branches or hurry up the stems as if fearing to be too late.” From the first moment of her wooing welcome it would seem that our evening primrose listens for murmuring wings, and awaits that supreme fulfilment with joyous expectancy, for it will invariably be found that these blossoms, which open in the twilight, have adapted themselves to crepuscular moths and other nocturnal insects, a fact which finds a striking illustration in the instances of very long tubular-shaped night-blooming flowers, like the honeysuckle and divers orchids, whose nectar is beyond the ability of any insect but a night-flying hawk-moth to attain. True, it is, that in other less deep nocturnal flowers the sweets could be reached by butterflies or bees if the blossoms were left open. But the night-murmurers receive the first invitation, which, if accepted, leaves but a wilted, half-hearted blossom to welcome the sipper of the sunshine. This beautiful expectancy, somehow or other, determines the limit of its bloom. However, in the event of rain or other causes preventive of insect visits, the evening primrose will remain open for the attention of the butterflies during the ensuing day, when otherwise it would have perceptibly drooped, and extended to them but a listless welcome. Most strikingly may this fact be seen illustrated in a spray of mountain-laurel. For nearly a week have I observed in my house these blossoms lingering in patient expectancy, when the flowers on the parent shrub in the woods had fallen several days before, their mission in life having been fulfilled. In the house specimens the radiating stamens, which are naturally dependent upon insects for their release, and the consequent discharge of the pollen, remained in their pockets on the side of the blossom-cup, a support, as it seemed, for the bracing up of the corolla upon its receptacle. But when the operation of releasing the stamens was artificially consummated, the flower-cup soon dropped off or withered upon the peduncle.