38 Echites difformis.
Root perennial, stem scandent, red. Leaves opposite, lanceolate,
oval-lanceolate, and even oval above, lower ones linear, or nearly
so, on short petioles, acuminate, grass-green, having a silky pubescence
underneath, thickest on the costa and veins. Flowers small,
straw-yellow, borne in trichotomous corymbs or cymose racemes,
which are sometimes axillary, at others originate from between the
petioles. Corolla funnel-shaped, the tube obscurely four-furrowed,
border five-cleft, the segments as in Parsonsia of R. Brown, equilateral,
ovate, the mouth lined with an aggregation of soft, villous hairs.
Calix sulphur-yellow, angular at the base, five-toothed, the teeth
acute, and carmine-red. Anthers simple, narrow-sagittate, and rigid,
adhering to the middle of the annulate two-lobed stigma which
crowns a style nearly as long as the stamens, and very viscid. Germs
two, embedded at base in a glandular, five-toothed torus. Follicles
very long, slender and straight. Grows in damp rich soils and
swamps in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.
Browne, in his history of Jamaica, designated a genus of lactescent
plants with twining stems, opposite and smooth shining leaves,
and cymose or corymbose flowers, by the generic appellation Echites,
from ‘X'h a serpent, or viper. Professor Martyn supposes this name
to have been chosen on account of the deleterious properties of the
plants of the tribe it was to comprise, and for the propriety of the
name, the smooth serpentine habit of all the species appears to
afford an additional reason.
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Echites difformis. 39
In North America we have but one species of this genus,—that
which is here figured. In this there does not appear to be any deleterious
property. The flowers are without beauty, and wholly destitute
of scent, a circumstance in which it agrees with all the species
of the genus hitherto known, which Browne informs us, are without
odour.
In this part of our country, Echites difformis is only known as a
green-house or pot-plant. A native of the south, it requires the genial
protection of a conservatory or green-house during the winter
months.
The table represents a flowering specimen, taken from the upper
portion of a plant, in the valuable collection in the gardens of Messrs.
Landreth.