Night Flowers 207 
long blossom-tubes are sometimes followed by 
shining, .green seed-vessels, it is evident that the 
day lily occasionally receives a visitor, who comes 
under cover of night. A  flower-tube so long as 
this can be drained only by an insect with a very 
long proboscis. Such insects are large and con- 
spicuous, and if they flew by day would be speed- 
ily ‘‘nabbed’’ by birds, collectors, or small boys. 
Like Leander, they must pay their addresses by 
night for life’s sweet sake. 
So the deepest-throated flowers are almost all 
nocturnal. The jasmine, the tuberose, and ste- 
phanotis, which keep their nectar in very long and 
slender tubes, blow at evening, and give their 
fragrance to the night. The Yucca Filamentosa, 
familiarly known as ‘‘Adam’s needle and thread,” 
is another familiar garden night-flower (Fig. 57). 
By day its greenish-white flowers are bell- 
shaped and odorless; and if the twilight be cold 
or rainy its coming makes little difference in 
their aspect. But on a clear, sultry evening, 
soon after sunset, the yucca shows a marked 
change. Its blossoms open widely, spreading in- 
to great six-pointed stars, and breathe forth a 
very penetrating and characteristic odor. 
As morning breaks the blossoms lose the star- 
