130 A GARDEN DIARY 
was to receive an impression of being surrounded 
by a crowd of gigantic, lemon-coated attend- 
ants, all standing respectfully at attention, an ex- 
perience naturally rather trying to mere modest 
humanity. 
There is another equally large and complacent 
biennial, which, on account perhaps of that 
very complacence, I find myself constantly 
treating with the scantiest civility. It has not 
I think quite the solid strength and impressive 
bearing of the great mullein, but as regards 
height, is often even more gigantesque. This is 
the large variety of C£nothera biennis, familiar 
to most people as CEnothera Lamarckiana, but 
possessing no English name that I am aware of 
beyond the generic, and not very descriptive 
one of “Evening primrose.” There are a good 
many varieties of evening primroses in gardens, 
both perennials and biennials, and a few true 
species, of which missouriensis, otherwise macro- 
carpa, is undoubtedly one of the best. Lamarck- 
iana on the other hand is hardly a subject for the 
garden proper. As a tenant of steep banks, of 
rough borders; of all sorts of half, or three- 
quarter wild places, it has in this soil no com- 
petitor, or only finds such competitors in the two 
biggest of the mulleins. 
I have been trying this year the experiment 
of planting it along both sides of the green 
