662 



NIGHT GARDENS. 



tongue fern is the striking manner in which the young 

 plants are produced. The process of germination of 

 the spores or seed is carried on while the spores con- 

 tinue to adhere to the frond. Here they remain until 

 the little plants become so large that the entire surface 

 is hidden. As the weight of the young plants increases 

 with growth, the old frond gradually droops to the 

 ground, where it finally decays and leaves its parasitic in- 

 fants to be nourished on the bosom of their mother earth. 



These plants are of easy culture, and are indispens- 

 able both to the fernery out of doors and in the green- 

 house. Their greatest merit is that of being an ever- 

 green and growing more luxuriantly during winter than 

 at any other season. The smaller growing varieties are 

 admirably adapted to cultivation under glass, and all 

 are of high value in a collection, as those will find 

 who have tried them in a fernery. — Mrs. J, T. Power, 

 Keiitiiiky . 



NIGHT GARDENS. 



GARDEN by day discloses 

 only a portion of its beauties, 

 and many people living near 

 gardens are oblivious of the 

 charms of their most familiar 

 surroundings. Plants, like 

 city people, sleep and wake 

 at all hours. Those which 

 revive at sunrise are inclined to sleep during the 

 darkness. A sleeping garden is no romantic fancy 

 of the poet. Any garden of plainest prose, where 

 mosquitoes bite and weeds flourish, can give us 

 strange and unfamiliar sights, but of this world, not 

 of fairyland. Leaves sleep in positions very differ- 

 ent from those assumed during their waking hours. 

 The familiar clover brings its two side-leaflets 

 together like the closed covers of a book, and the 

 center one bends forward until it touches the others. 

 Being natives of well-watered countries, they may 

 do this to escape being beaten prostrate by rain. 

 Those that like water, as do the geraniums, seem 

 to twist themselves into cup-like forms to catch the 

 dew. The drooping leaves of the grape vine are 

 raised at the edges and depressed in the middle, and 

 each little stem often leads a tiny streamlet on its 

 way to the main trunk. Why is it some leaves 

 want to catch the water and others shed it as rap- 

 idly as possible ? Wistaria leaves droop as if in 

 slumber. The common locust settles down early. 

 The terminal leaflet hangs like a plummet, while the 

 side leaflets dangle in rows. Some leaves hang as 

 if drooping from excessive heat, but they do not 

 feel as wilted leaves, soft and limp, but are crisp 

 and firm. All sleeping foliage seems characterized 

 by this curious stiffness. 



The sleeping and waking of plants are governed by 

 many causes aside from the flight of time. The bright- 

 ness of the sky, the amount of dew-fall, or the state of 

 the atmosphere alt appear to exercise an effect on this 

 beautiful and still mysterious phase of nature. Dark- 

 ness does not cause it, for the portulacca closes its bril- 

 liant flowers while daylight lasts, and the sweet old 



mirabilis or four o'clock discloses its beauty and awakes 

 to a more intense life before the sun has lost his power ; 

 then if his rays are fervent on the succeeding day the 

 flowers wilt soon after they are felt, but on a cloudy day 

 will often remain to greet the new blossoms. 



The day-lilies open at evening like the honeysuckles, 

 and give their first and most delicious perfume to the 

 night air. Although the ipomaeas include the "morning 

 glory," there are numerous kinds that, like the moon- 

 flower, are finest at night. Are we so fortunate as to 

 have a lily pond, then we should raise the tropical nym- 

 phaea, which is one of the most beautiful of all flowers. 

 Fitting companions to the lilies are the different forms 

 of the night-blooming cereus. But it is not only to 

 tropical strangers like these that we need look for 

 beauty — at dark the Oenotheras or evening primroses are 

 in bloom. They come in nightly succession for weeks, 

 and in dull weather endure through the succeeding day 

 unless their frail texture is destroyed by rain. Their 

 great yellow petals open and disclose a cross-shaped 

 stigma and trembling anthers ; and the flowers are 

 made still more at- 

 tractive by the faint, 

 rich perfume which 

 they exhale. The white- 

 flowered night-bloom- 

 ing tobacco {^Nicotiana 

 nffinis) should be more 

 often grown than it is, 

 and will be when it is 

 better known. The 

 datura is another beau- 

 tiful night-blooming 

 flower. It seems as if 

 most trumpet shaped 

 flowers first open at 

 night, and thatthenight 

 bloomers are most 

 abundant during the 

 fervid heat of summer ; 

 while the flowers o f 

 spring open in response 

 to the rays of the sun, 

 and sleep when he is 

 gone. 



Fig. I. 



ii-FoLioLATE Leaf. 

 (See page 66s-') 



Most scented flowers distribute their odor more 

 liberally after dark, and some, like the tropical night- 



