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Marvel of Peru- 
“Thy flower, her vigil lone hath kept 
With Love’s untiring care; 
Though round her pinks and violets slept, 
She wakefully hath watch’d, and wept 
Unto the dewy air.” 
This true marvel is really one of those flowers which, alone 
and unobserved, in maidenly shame, seem to wait for the veil 
of night ere they give way to their feelings and exhale them 
in sweet aromas. They are, indeed, those timid blooms of 
night which weep for joy when 
“Soft incense, such 
As steals from herbs ’midst pleasant fields in June, 
Freights the night air.” 
The ordinary marvel of Peru bedecks itself with a profusion 
of gay blossoms, which it continually replenishes, in mild 
seasons retaining its beauty from the beginning of July to the 
end of October. In warm weather the flowers do not unclose 
till the evening; but when the days are cooler, and the sun 
obscured, the timid little blooms keep open the whole day. 
The Forked Marvel is a native of Mexico, and its blossoms, 
which are smaller than those of the other varieties, do not vary 
in their colour, which is a purple red. It is known in America 
as the “ four-o’clock flower,” because of the flower’s opening at 
that time of the day. 
The sweet-scented varieties of these flowers have white 
blossoms, and they, as do the other kinds, remain closed during 
the day, and keep 
“ Their odour to themselves all day, 
But when the sunlight dies away, 
Let the delicious secret out 
To every breeze that roams about. ” 
The odour of these flowers, however, is not admired by 
every one, since it is of musk, to which many have a decided 
antipathy. 
Mrs. Hemans has left us debtors for the following exquisite 
discourse with “ Night-scented Flowers : ” 
“ Call back your odours, lonely flowers, 
From the night-wind call them back; 
And fold your leaves till the laughing hours 
Come forth in the sunbeam’s track. 
