THE EVENING PRIMROSE 195 



and the whole thing irretrievably ruined. On going 

 out after dark with a lantern we may see the 

 devastation proceeding gaily. We have night 

 after night collected from eighty to a hundred 

 snails and consigned them to destruction, but the 

 task is a repulsive one, and, after all, not entirely 

 efficacious, so that in self-defence a noble mass of 

 ivy many feet high, many yards long, has gradually 

 disappeared from our wall, much as we appreciated 

 its shelter and beauty. 



One great compensation to these nocturnal visits 

 is that we find our evening primroses in all their 

 splendour. As the shades of evening advance these 

 flowers unfold with startling rapidity until the whole 

 plant is lavishly decked with their delicate sulphur 

 yellow. 1 Originally a North American plant, it 

 made its first appearance in Europe in 1619, the 

 seeds being sent to Padua. The exact date of its 

 arrival in England is uncertain, but it must have 

 been very soon after this, as we find Parkinson, 

 in his " Garden of Pleasant Flowers," published in 

 1629, referring to it as a well-known plant. He 

 calls it the tree primrose of Virginia. Another 

 name for it is the evening star. When once 

 established it seeds very freely, and repression 

 rather than cultivation becomes presently neces- 



1 "You, evening primroses, when day has fled, 



Open your pallid flowers, by dews and moonlight fed." 



BARTON. 



