iljii’rr'ti: piHi! :i
lower one 3-lobed, tlie lobes sbort, rounded, even. Stamens 4,
didynamous ; anterior pair longest. Filaments compressed,
white, glabrous. Anthers bilocular, the cells purple, hairy,
attached along the margin of the broad, heart-shaped, white
fleshy connectivum. Style filiform, white, glabrous, longer
thanthe corolla. Stigmas 2, awl-shaped, acute, nearly equal,
recurved, the posterior one rather shorter. Ovarium 4-lobed.
Gathered on the mountains of South Carolina by Mr.
Alexander Gordon, a collector sent out by our friend Mr.
Charlwood, to whose exertions we are already indebted for
a number of equally rare and showy plants from North
America, which had either never been before introduced, or
had become lost to our gardens. The subject before us is a
highly ornamental little shrub, and is well deserving the
attention of the cultivator, both on account of the _ delicacy
of its habit, and its large showy blossoms, which rival those
of the Salvia fulgens. The plant thrives best in a mixture of
sandy peat and loam, and is increased with facility by cuttings.
It will require the protection of a frame in winter,
and the pots should be well drained, and the plants plentifully
supplied with water while in a growing state. The plant
continues in blossom from June to October. Our drawing
was taken from specimens communicated by Mr. Charlwood
in August last.
It is stated in Dr. Hooker’s Exotic Flora to be from Florida,
but it is more than probable that this is a mistake, as it
is not likely that a plant should be at the same time a native
of the mountains of South Carolina, and of the low, swampy
regions of the Floridas.
Nuttall took it for a Cunila, and called it C. coccínea, but
this appears to have been at hazard, for it is not likely that
so accurate an investigator would have referred it to a genus
with which it has so few characters in common, had he seen
the plant in a living state, or been furnished with perfect
specimens of it.—Mr. Bentham, in his elaborate treatise on
the Lahiatce, has rightly included it in Gardoquia.
The genus was dedicated by Ruiz and Pavon to Don
Diego Gardoqui, Minister of Finance under Charles IV. of
Spain, who greatly promoted the publication of the Flora
Peruviana. D. J)on.
1. C o r o l la w ith th e S ta in e n s . 2 . P i s t i l .