Most of the _Oenothera_ tribe are annual, have large yellow flowers, which open once only, and that in the evening, displaying their beauty, and exhaling their fragrance at a time which will not admit of their being much enjoyed; the present species in some respects deviates from many of the others, the root is perennial, the flowers which are large and shewy, though they open in the evening, remain expanded during most of the ensuing day; the flower-buds, the germen, and the stalk are enlivened by a richness of colour which contributes to render this species one of the most ornamental and desirable of the tribe. It is a hardy perennial, growing to the height of three or four feet, with us altogether herbaceous, and therefore improperly called _fruticosa_; a native of Virginia, flowering from June to August: was cultivated in 1739 by Mr. MILLER. May be propagated by seeds, by parting of the roots, and also by cuttings. [333] CERINTHE MAJOR. GREAT HONEY-WORT. _Class and Order._ PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. _Generic Character._ _Corollæ_ limbus tubulato ventricosus: fauce pervia. _Semina_ 2, bilocularia. _Specific Character and Synonyms._ CERINTHE _major_ foliis amplexicaulibus, corollis obtusiusculis patulis. _Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14. Murr. p. 187. Ait. Kew. v. 1. p. 183._ CERINTHE _glaber_ foliis oblongo-ovatis glabris amplexicaulibus, corollis obtusiusculis patulis. _Mill. Dict. ed. 6. 4to._ CERINTHE flore ex rubro purpurascente. _Bauh. pin. p. 258._ CERINTHE major. Great Honiewoort. _Ger. Herb._ [Illustration: _N^o. 333_] Ancient writers on plants, supposing that the flowers of this genus produced abundantly the material of which bees form their wax, gave it the name of _Cerinthe_, which rendered into English would be wax-flower or waxwort, not honeywort, by which the genus has long been, and is now, generally called. Of this genus there are only two species known, the _major_ and the _minor_, both happily distinguished by the different form of their flowers, a part from which it is not common to draw specific differences, though in some instances they afford the best. The _major_ varies much, the leaves being sometimes spotted, very rough, and the flowers of a more yellow hue; this is the sort figured by GERARD in his Herbal, who mentions its growing in his garden (1597). MILLER considers this as a species but LINNÆUS, HALLER, AITON, and others, regard it as a variety; our figure represents the _Cerinthe glaber_ of MILLER.