It's four o'clock

I noticed these pretty flowers along the railroad tracks on Monday morning and did not know what they were. A check of my Peterson's Field Guide to Wildflowers told me it was Mirabilis Nyctaginea, commonly called Wild Four O'Clock. It is a native plant that likes disturbed areas and is often found along railroads.

It does not seem to be useful for anything and is sometimes considered a weed. It may also be poisonous, so should not be eaten. One of the sites I found on the Internet said that the flowers are only open for a few hours, so I guess I was lucky to catch them looking the way they do in these pictures. And that probably explains why it is not grown as a garden flower.

The way the leaves are paired is quite distinctive.