Tall and vigorous herbaceous plants, mostly without any beauty of flower when closely examined, but often affording a pleasing distant effect when seen in masses, and hence desirable for this mode of gardening, though seldom suitable for a position in the garden proper. They grow in any soil, and should be placed among rank herbs and coarse vegetation, not in the foreground, which might be occupied by more brilliant subjects. There are many kinds not differing much in aspect ; some of the smaller ones in the way of our own British T. minus, deserve a place among dwarf vegetation for the elegance of their leaves. With these last may he associated the Italian Isopyrum thalictroides, which is handsome in flower and elegant in leaf.