72 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



one white rose I think I should choose Lamarque. The 

 old white cabbage is also a great beauty. 



The drought has more effect on the bulbous and 

 herbaceous plants than it has upon the trees and 

 shrubs. But I note two families of herbaceous plants 

 which in my soil seem to rejoice in the drought, 

 the Oenotheras and the funkias. The Oenotheras, or 

 evening primroses, are beautiful plants, but I never 

 could understand Linnseus's reason for giving this 

 name, which he got from Theophrastus and Pliny, 

 to a family of plants which are entirely American, 

 though two have been admitted into the European 

 and English floras, but there can be no doubt that 

 they are aliens and garden escapes. Theophrastus's 

 Oenothera {Vini venator) is supposed to have been a 

 willow herb, but Pliny's cannot be identified with 

 any plant now known : — 



' It is,' he says, ' an hearbe good as wine to make the heart 

 merrie. It groweth with leaves resembling those of the almond- 

 tree, and beareth flowers like unto roses. Of such virtue is 

 this hearbe, that if it be given to drink to the wildest beast 

 that is, it will tame the same and make it gentle.' — Holland's 

 Translation. 



The best known of the low-growing evening primroses 

 is probably the old yellow (E. missouriensis, and that 

 is a plant that no garden should be without. But 



