64 Cuphea viscocissima.
of glandular hairs. Leaves numerous, opposite, ovate-oblong, those
on the stem about an inch or an inch and a quarter long, situated on
pubescent petioles more than half an inch in length, and of a red colour.
Those of the branches smaller, narrower, and supported by
shorter petioles: all very entire, sub-acute, attenuated at base, smooth
on both sides, and somewhat scabrous on the margin in the dried
plant. Flowers solitary, and situated in the axills of each pair of
leaves on the stem—lateral and terminal on the branches, and when
terminal, crowded in clusters of three and four. Peduncles covered
with red, viscous hairs, an eighth part of an inch long, inserted under
the posterior gibbosity or projection of the base of the calix. Petals
generally six, but very often only five in number, and unequal.
The two superior ones the largest, ovate, acute ; the lower
ones linear,- all wrinkled, small, of a brilliant red-purple colour,
turning a deeper hue in drying. Calix tubulous, dentated at the
mouth,slightly arcuate, at first cylindrical, afterwards urceolate, membranaceous,
greenish-yellow on the under surface and striated, red
above, streaked with darker stria; of the same hue, gibbous at the superior
part of the base, and invested with a clammy, red pubescence
; nectary a reflexed scale within the gibbosity of the calix. The
calix becomes an inflated, urceolate, membranaceous, striated capsule,
which when mature loses much of the red colour, and even assumes
a yellowish or dull-white hue. This capsule by its maturation
acquires an elasticity that causes it to burst laterally in a direction
opposite to the white receptacle, which, thus denuded, exhibits
from five to seven lenticular ash-coloured seeds marked longitudiCuphea
viscocissima. 65
nally by a white hilum, imbricately but vertically attached to it. The
capsule bursts by a longitudinal opening, owing to the protrusion of
the lengthened receptacle of unripe seeds, which come to maturity
in the open air.
Grows in sandy fields, along the borders of sandy woods, and on
the arenaceous margins of rivers, from Pennsylvania to Louisiana.
Very abundant in Lancaster, Penn, where it covers whole fields. In
the woods of Belmont, the seat of Judge Peters, in the neighbourhood
of this city, it is found, but not abundantly. Also in fields
south-east of, and near Gray’s Ferry; and near Cooper’s Ferry, Jersey,
along the edges of ditches communicating with the Delaware.
Flowers in June and until September. Not unfrequently found in
blossom in October and even the beginning of November. At this
time it is covered with the pappus of syngenesious plants that is
caught and tenaciously held by the clammy hairs investing the
whole plant except the leaves, which are quite naked on both sides.
The hairs are capitated with glandular dots, which secrete this viscous
fluid, for some occult purpose in the economy of the plant.
The genus Cuphea is tropical except the present plant, and
contains but few species. The one under notice is common to
this country and Brazil, where it grows in moist, shady ground. The
extreme viscosity of its pubescence, has caused it to receive the
specific name it bears; it is common to another species, which how