Way down South, and also in some parts of Florida, there lives a lovely convolvulus. It grows something like our morning-glories, only its leaves are all sorts of shapes, heart-shaped and halberd-shaped and angled, all together on the same vine sometimes.
Its blossoms are real flower queens, they are so large and white and fragrant. They have a tube which is three or four inches long, and a snowy border still larger. They are called bona nox, which you know very well is the Latin for “good night.”
The reason they are called this is, they do not open in the morning at all, but always at night.
People have them growing over their porches sometimes, and sometimes call them “moonflowers.”
The long white buds are twisted tightly shut in the daytime, but as soon as the sun sets, if you are watching, you will see something to astonish and delight you. For see, the bud moves a little! Then, all at once, the great white flower spreads out its corolla with a grace and serenity that thrill you. Before your very eyes the bud unfolds, and you have seen a flower blossom out! At the same moment a delicate and delightful fragrance fills the air.
But why does it bloom at night you ask.
The morning-glory has a bright bell to call the bees, but the bees do not fly at night. Does this large, fragrant white flower not care for the bees? Does it not wish pollen from other flowers?
That it does; above all things it wants pollen, and that is why it has opened this large, white, fragrant corolla.
See its tube, how long and deep. What bee could reach into that nectary?
A humming bird might, but the humming birds are all tucked up on their tiny perches sound asleep. They will never sip the nectar from those large white moonflowers.