422 Old Time Gardens 



pink and lilac. It is the Night-scented Stock, and 

 lavishly through the still night it pours forth its 

 ineffable fragrance. A single plant, thirty feet from 

 an open window, will waft its perfume into the 

 room. This white Stock was a favorite flower, of 

 Marie Antoinette, under its French name the Juli- 

 enne. " Night Violets," is its appropriate German 

 name. Hesperis ! the name shows its habit. Dame's 

 Rocket is our title for this cheerful old favorite of 

 May, which shines in such snowy beauty at night, 

 and throws forth such a compelling fragrance. It is 

 rarely found in our gardens, but I have seen it grow- 

 ing wild by the roadside in secluded spots ; not in 

 ample sheets of growth like Bouncing Bet, which 

 we at first glance thought it was ; it is a shyer stray, 

 blossoming earlier than comely Betsey. 



The old-fashioned single, or slightly double, coun- 

 try Pink, known as Snow Pink or Star Pink, was 

 often used as an edging for small borders, and its blu- 

 ish green, almost gray, foliage was quaint in effect and 

 beautiful in the moonlight. When seen at night, 

 the reason for the folk-name is evident. Last sum- 

 mer, on a heavily clouded night in June, in a cottage 

 garden at West Hampton, borders of this Snow Pink 

 shone out of the darkness with a phosphorescent 

 light, like hoar-frost, on every grassy leaf; while the 

 hundreds of pale pink blossoms seemed softly shin- 

 ing stars. It was a curious effect, almost wintry, 

 even in midsummer. The scent was wafted down 

 the garden path, and along the country road, like a 

 concentrated essence, rather than a fleeting breath 

 of flowers. One of these cottage borders is shown on 



