Though his attempt to publish The Temple of Flora bankrupted him, Robert Thornton earned enduring fame for his efforts. Of the lugubrious setting for what we know as the night-blooming cereus, he said, in the night-blowing Cereus… you have the moon playing on the dimpled water, and the turret-clock points XII, the hour at night when this flower is in its full expanse.
![Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia [Elisabeth v. England, Gemahlin Friedrich's V. v. d. Pfalz], Robert John Dunkarton, 1810–1815](https://diglib.hab.de/varia/haum/Dunkaston-r-v3-6254/max/000001.jpg)
