Our downstairs neighbor is an extraordinary gardener, and we never know what plants or flowers are going to show up in the back yard next. Yesterday morning as we were heading to the garage, Laura said, "Hey, look! Moonflowers!"

The moonflower (Ipomoea alba) is a pretty cool plant. It grows fairly tall and the blossoms are huge, at least by back yard garden standards. It blooms at night, but only in late summer and autumn this far north because the days are otherwise too long. Instead of folding outward when it opens, like a lot of blossoms, the flower untwists, which is really something to see. If the morning is cool and overcast, the flower will stay open into the day, which is why a couple of the ones in the garden yesterday were out on full display.

After I dropped Laura off at the train and returned home, I spent a lot of time studying the plants, and also blowing the ants off the petals so I could get some decent pictures of them. I'd never spent any time looking at an actual moonflower before—the petals are surprisingly delicate, and feel almost like satin—which is perhaps strange because moonflowers figure prominently in my story "Observations from the City of Angels." (It was published in Salon under the title "Love in the Age of Spyware," and is still available there. It can also be heard in podcast form as episode 63 of Escape Pod.)

I just wish I had a robot I could have posed next to the plants.