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THE MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
THE DARK-FLOWERED STOCK-GILLY¬ 
FLOWER. 
CHEIKANTHUS TRISTIS. 
“ ‘ Call back your odours, lonely flowers, 
From the night-wind call them back, 
And fold your leaves, till the laughing hours 
Come forth on the sunbeam’s track ! ’ 
‘ Nay let our shadowy beauty bloom 
When the stars give quiet light. 
And let us offer our faint perfume 
On the silent shrine of night.’ ” 
The Cheiranthus tristis is a plant of lowly growth, 
and perhaps the most homely of the genus to which it 
belongs. The sombre hue of its blossoms, and their 
exhaling fragrance only in the night, may probably 
have originated the appellation of melancholy gilli- 
flower. Many of the double varieties are eminently 
beautiful, and give out their rich odours so freely in 
the daytime as fully to deserve the notice of Thomson, 
who in his enumeration of flowers passes this encomium 
on the whole family : — 
“ And lavish stock, which scents the garden round.” 
