OENOTHERA. 



o 



Odontospermum maritimum is a silky-woolled neat Com- 

 posite with golden flowers packed among shoots of greyish foliage, 

 which, with its kin, may be seen tucked into the Maritime rocks of 

 the Levant ; but they are hardly hardy with us, nor very well worth 

 the trouble of trying, were it not that failure would bring so little 

 disappointment. 



Oenothera. — American botanists have been having such games 

 with the Evening Primroses that now there is really no knowing what 

 is what, unless we ignore all these superfluous fal-lals, and stick simply 

 to the good old name, without troubling our heads with Lavauxia, 

 Pachylophus, Galpisia, Chylisma, Meriolyx, Onagra, Anogra, and all the 

 other tiresome anagrams into which our thicker-blooded-than-water- 

 friends across the Atlantic have lately been mangling the Evening 

 Primroses. At the same time, the words are worth remembering, 

 lest they creep into catalogues, and some day we repent in bankruptcy 

 for having given 3s. 6d. for a flaming novelty called Pachylophus 

 caespitosus, only to find that it was merely Oenothera caespitosa after 

 all, of which it luckily chanced that our garden was already full. In 

 any case the American Evening Primroses, ravishing though be the 

 beauty of many (and usually easy to achieve), are not always soundly 

 permanent in our climates, and should frequently be raised from seed 

 or root cuttings, as well as accommodated with choice sunny places 

 in especially light and sandy soil, where it will then be possible for 

 them to despise several of our wet winters without too poignantly 

 regretting the prairies from which they come. All the species are late- 

 summer bloomers, and prodigal bloomers too, so that their merits are 

 thereby enhanced, even if their very beauty have something a little 

 lush and ephemeral and cheap about its look, that makes them seem 

 unworthier still beside the brave brilliancy of a true-bred alpine. 

 Here follow, then, the dwarf er sorts, leaving out the taller ones after 

 the persuasion of our own yellow Oe. biennis, which are all adequately 

 dealt with by Herbaceous catalogues. 



Oe. acaulis has yellow flowers, lonely on stems of 6 inches or so. 



Oe. Arendsii, on the contrary, is the one really first-class plant in the 

 family for the rock-garden — first-rate not only in the beauty of its 

 flowers, that is, but also in the vigour and endurance of its nature. 

 The plant is a hybrid from Oe. speciosa, and planted prudently in good 

 open soil on a warm slope, it will take permanent possession of its 

 place, spreading endlessly, and susceptible of endless division, suffering 



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