232 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



Spanish, by its quaint native name of James of 

 the night, and, in English, primrose simply. I re- 

 call with a smile that it was a shock to my child- 

 ish mind to learn that our primrose was not the 

 primrose. Then, I remember, came the time when 

 I could ride out over the plain ; and it surprised me 

 to discover that this primrose, unlike the four- 

 o 'clock and morning-glory, and other evening flow- 

 ers in our garden, was also a wild flower. I knew 

 it by its unmistakable perfume, but on those 

 plains, where the grass was cropped close, the 

 plant was small, only a few inches high, and the 

 flowers no bigger than buttercups. Afterwards I 

 met with it again in the swampy woods and ever- 

 glades along the Plata Eiver; and there it grew 

 tall and rank, five or six feet high in some cases, 

 with large flowers that had only a faint perfume. 

 Still later, going on longer expeditions, sometimes 

 with cattle, I found it in extraordinary abundance 

 on the level pampas south of the Salado River; 

 there it was a tall slender plant, grass-like among 

 the tall grasses, with wide open flowers about an 

 inch in diameter, and not more than two or three 

 on each plant. Finally, I remember that on first 

 landing in Patagonia, on a desert part of the coast, 

 the time being a little after daybreak, I became 

 conscious of the familiar perfume in the air, and, 

 looking about me, discovered a plant growing on 

 the barren sand not many yards from the sea; 

 there it grew, low and bush-like in form, with stiff 



