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Old Time Gardens 
Greeks. It was called by the French la flambe 
blanche , a beautiful poetic title — the White Torch 
of the Garden. 
A flower of mystery, of wonderment to children, 
was the Evening Primrose ; I knew the garden 
variety only with intimacy. Possibly the wild 
flower had similar charms and was equally weird in 
the gloaming, but it grew by country roadsides, 
and I was never outside our garden limits after 
nightfall, so I know not its evening habits. We 
had in our garden a variety known as the California 
Evening Primrose — a giant flower as tall as our 
heads. My mother saw its pale yellow stars shining 
in the early evening in a cottage garden on Cape 
Ann, and was there given, out of the darkness, by 
a fellow flower lover, the seeds which have afforded to 
us every year since so much sentiment and pleas- 
ure. The most exquisite description of the Even- 
ing Primrose is given by Margaret Deland in her 
Old Garden : — 
“ There the primrose stands, that as the night 
Begins to gather, and the dews to fall. 
Flings wide to circling moths her twisted buds, 
That shine like yellow moons with pale cold glow. 
And all the air her heavy fragrance Hoods, 
And gives largess to any winds that blow. 
Here in warm darkness of a night in June, 
. . . children came 
To watch the primrose blow. Silently they stood 
Hand clasped in hand, in breathless hush around. 
And saw her slyly doff her soft green hood 
And blossom — with a silken burst of sound .’ 9 
