Lysimachia racemosa.
Plant from eighteen inches to two and a half feet high; very
smooth. Root perennial, fibrous. Leaves yellowish-green, lanceolate,
and oval-lanceolate, very entire, opposite, finely dotted with
black specks. Flowers numerous, from twenty to thirty-five, in a
long, pyramidal, loose, terminal raceme; sometimes verticillated,
often alternate. Corolla bright yellow, rotate. Petals five, very rarely
six, oblong-lanceolate, somewhat twisted, forming at their juncture
with the calix a white central spot, circumscribed exteriorly to
the origin of the stamens, with red dots. Pedicels one-flowered,
slender, about a quarter or half an inch long. Flower buds yellow,
tipped with carmine-red. Calix, fivelinear-lanceolate, acute segments.
Bracts lanceolate. Lower flowers appearing first, and the raceme
becoming elongated during the progress of inflorescence. Often
viviparous, bearing narrow, sometimes ovate, red bulbs in the axills of
the leaves, about a quarter of an inch, and from that to near an inch
in length. Inhabits the margins of ditches and meadow-drains; low,
wet, grassy meadows, and, generally places contiguous to water, from
Canada to Virginia. Flowers in July and August.
The plant here figured is one of the prettiest of the American
species of the genus to which it belongs. It is a showy ornament of
the sites enumerated as its resort, and differs so much according to
the congeniality or unfavourableness of the soil in which it grows, that
it appears to be well worth cultivation. Delighting in moisture,
being quite hardy, and bearing transplantation well, there would ap-
8
Lysimachia racemosa. 3
pear nothing else requisite in its culture than a free supply of
water.
The appellation Lysimachia, is a very ancient generic term, and
we are informed by Pliny and Ambrosinus, that it was imposed in
honour of Lysimachus, a favourite general of Alexander the Great,
who afterwards became king of Thrace. The English name, Loosestrife,
given in common to all the species of the genus, is supposed
to be derived from two Greek words, a dissolution of strife,
or a peace-maker. The caprice, however, which affixed this name
and that of Lysimachus together, is enigmatical. And unless its origin
be looked for in an ironical intention, the appellation seems unaccountable
; since history informs us, that this king was cruel, ferocious,
and strifeful.
The most striking circumstance in the history of the present
species, is its occasional anomalous mode of re-production, by means
of bulbs. Hence Curtis called it L. bulbifera. Specimens are
not uncommon, which present so many of these axillary seeds, that
the aspect of the plant is, to those unacquainted with the fact, materially
changed. In such instances the flowers are abortive, no seed
nor capsules being matured. The plant varies also in being simple,
or very much branched, according to circumstances. Grounds
generally wet, or occasionally irrigated or inundated, and the borders
of rivers, rivulets, bogs, and watery thickets, will seldom be