Mr. Baldwin declares : " If 1 ever write a romance of Indian 

 life, my dusky heroine, Birch Tree or Trembling Fawn, shall 

 meet her lover with a wreath of this orchis on her head.' ' 



EVENING PRIMROSE. 



(Enothera biennis. Evening Primrose Family. 



Stout ; erect ; one to five feet high. Leaves. Alternate ; lance-shaped 

 to oblong. Flowers. Pale yellow ; in a leafy spike ; opening at night. 

 Calyx. With a long tube ; four-lobed. Corolla. Of four somewhat heart- 

 shaped petals. Stamens. Eight, with long anthers. Pistil. One, with a 

 stigma divided into four linear lobes. 



Along the roadsides in midsummer we notice a tall, rank- 

 growing plant, which seems chiefly to bear buds and faded blos- 

 soms. And unless we are already familiar with the owl-like 

 tendencies of the evening primrose, we are surprised, some dim 

 twilight, to find this same plant resplendent with a mass of frag- 

 ile yellow flowers, which are exhaling their faint delicious fra- 

 grance on the evening air. 



One brief summer night exhausts the vitality of these delicate 

 blossoms. The faded petals of the following day might serve as 

 a text for a homily against all-night dissipation, did we not know 

 that by its strange habit the evening primrose guards against the 

 depredations of those myriad insects abroad during the day, 

 which are unfitted to transmit its pollen to the pistil of another 

 flower. 



We are impressed by the utilitarianism in vogue in this floral 

 world, as we note that the pale yellow of these blossoms gleams 

 so vividly through the darkness as to advertise effectively their 

 whereabouts, while their fragrance serves as a mute invitation 

 to the pink night-moth, which is their visitor and benefactor. 

 That they change their habits in the late year and remain open 

 during the day is due perhaps to the diminished power of the 

 sun. 



