206 RIVERSIDE LETTERS xxvi 



implies. I sowed some patches of this 

 rather more, I think, than eight years ago, 

 and though I have sown none since, I have 

 never been without numbers of self-sown 

 plants, coming up amidst the general tangle 

 in the autumn, which are ever welcome, not 

 alone for their lively beauty and profusion 

 of bloom, but for their sweet scent, which 

 is of a purity and innocence in harmony 

 with their aspect, and which greatly re- 

 sembles that of the cowslip. It is most 

 refreshing, as the autumn comes on, to be 

 thus reminded that there is such a period as 

 spring. Most of the evening primroses 

 seed very freely, some night-feeding insect 

 no doubt doing the necessary fertilisation. 

 The corolla of CE. tarraxifolia is joined 

 to the ovary by quite five inches of slender 

 tube ; the stamens are situated round the 

 entrance of this tube, the pistil going down 

 its entire length ; on page 75 of my former 

 Letters is a drawing of its curiously-shaped 

 seed-pod. 



