specimen pressed
no. 11 · h-coll.
tall, single-flowered, white at the inner throat and graded to a pale blue at the outer petal. the bloom opens at twenty-three hundred, give or take the minute it takes for warmth to leave the day. it closes again at the smaller hour, before light, before four.
useful, in former times, to the keepers of a vigil who wished to know roughly the hour without consulting the clock. see also midnight, the company of the moon, and the steady passage of the hourglass. it is faintly scented in the half-hour before opening, and not at all afterwards.
field note — i waited up to see one open, and could not say whether i saw it open or merely found it open.