Night Flowers 225 



Some of the pink family have adapted themselves 

 so nearly to the requirements of their chosen guests 

 that they have become unfitted for miscellaneous 

 hospitality. Their blossom-tubes are too long and 

 too narrow to be drained by most insects, and 

 hence many diurnal flowers of the pink family are 

 wholly dependent on butterflies, as some nocturnal 

 species are upon night-moths. 



The differences between day- and night-blossoms 

 are beautifully shown by two nearly-related Eng- 

 lish wild-flowers which have recently come into our 

 fields. They are known to English village chil- 

 dren as red and white campion, and to botanists 

 as "corn-cockle" and "evening-lychnis." The red 

 campion (Lychnis githago) or corn-cockle is already 

 resolving itself into a nuisance in the grain-fields 

 of the Central and Western States. It is rosy- 

 purple, blooms by day, and is fertilized by butter- 

 flies. As it is able to attract those insect friends 

 by its bright color alone, it is scentless. A few 

 clearly-drawn, dark lines, running from the edge 

 of the blossom to its centre, are a floral signal- 

 code, telling the butterflies where the nectar which 

 they seek is stored for them, at the bottom of 

 a tube so slender and deep that smaller insects 

 cannot reach down to it. At evening, when 



