NOVEMBER. 
241 
Tlie beautiful Tritonia crocata requires different treatment. This should 
not be dried off after flowering, but kept growing, as should also the equally 
beautiful Schizostylis coccinea. 
M. 
(ENOTHERA ACAULIS AND ITS CONGENERS. 
We shall not hazard much by the statement that the CEnothera acaulis 
of Cavanilles, familiar as it may be nominally to the gardening world, is 
in reality known to but few. It is true that for more than a quarter of a 
century it has, in company with the OE . tciraxacifolia, occupied a place in 
the seed and plant lists; but experiments, repeated ad nauseam, have 
proved that of late years, at least, the latter species has universally done 
duty for both plants. In fact, the true (E. acaulis has so eluded pursuit, 
that in the absence of facilities for referring to any published figure, one 
had been almost led to doubt its distinctness as a species from the better 
known plant. This was the more excusable, that in a variety of popular 
gardening works, both English and French, the names are given as syno¬ 
nymous;* and although Don, in his Dictionary, keeps them apart, his 
descriptions are so nearly identical in substance, that it is difficult to seize 
on any valid distinction, whilst he falls into the same error as the com¬ 
pilers of trade catalogues in representing both species as possessing “large 
white” flowers, and makes the foliage of (E. taraxacifolia pubescent, a 
character which belongs rather to the sister plant. 
A fortunate chance having at length placed the OE. acaulis within reach, 
the queestio vexata was at once solved. So far from yielding large white 
flowers, its blossoms are in fact miniatures, rarely exceeding 14 inch in 
diameter when fully expanded, the tube, which is never stained with purple, 
being about 2 inches in length; whilst those of (E. taraxacifolia have the 
limb of the corolla from 3 to 4 inches in diameter, and the tube not less 
than 4 to 5 inches or more in length. If to this be added that the petals of 
(E. acaulis are so refuse as to be almost truncate, with a distinct point or 
mucro at the tip, and that the foliage is more perceptibly pubescent, and of 
a duller shade of green than in the allied species, it will be evident that 
the two species are distinguishable at a glance, and the rarity of the 
(E. acaulis can alone account for the confusion that has existed. 
Both species produce prostrate stems, but those of the (E. acaulis are of 
more slender and restricted growth than in the related species, and, so far 
as observed, both stems and flower-tubes are uniformly green, and are 
never stained with the purplish tint so generally occurring in the more 
robust plant. It must be admitted that, as a garden plant, the (E. acaulis 
is greatly inferior to the (E. taraxacifolia; its blossoms being too small to 
produce much effect. It is doubtless to this circumstance that is due its 
gradual supercession by its more showy relative. 
The present may not be an unfitting occasion for drawing attention to 
two or thr,ee other white-flowered species of (Enothera, now seldom met 
with, though they are neither deficient in ornamental value, nor at all 
difficult of cultivation. Of these may be named the OE. anisoloba, a native 
* In the well-known publication, Le Bon Jardinier, edited by botanists of repute, as 
well as in a more recent publication, Les Fleurs de pleine Terre, by Yilmorin-Andrieux, 
et Cie., the two names are applied to the same plant. 
