66 Batschia canescens.
P la n t from eight to twelve inches high. Root perennial, yielding
a blood-red juice on fracture or compression. Stem cylindrical, erect,
villous. Leaves erect, alternate, crowded towards the top of the stem,
where they grow shorter; lanceolate-oval, obtuse below; lanceolate-
obtuse higher up on the stem—and lanceolate, falcate, sub-acute near
the flowers—all entire, sericeously canescent on either disk. Costa
particularly villous, and without collateral nerves. Flowers corymbose,
pedunculate. Calix with subulate segments, villous at the bottom.
Corolla yellow. Tube funnel-form, fulvous. Limb spreading, cam-
panulate. Segments rounded. Stamens short, included. Grows from
Virginia to Georgia. On dry sunny hills in sandy soil in Virginia and
Tennessee. Pursh. Flowering time June and July. Pursh mentions
“ that the root is covered with a red substance, which he remarks is
the true Puccoon of the Indians, and paints a beautiful red.”:
The genus Batschia was so named by Gmelin in honour of a distinguished
botanist, whose name it commemorates. It comprises plants
previously referred to Anchusa, which together with some newly discovered
species amount to four in number. Mr. Nuttall remarks, that
the roots of the whole genus yield a crimson lac.
The table represents a flowering specimen of the plant, of the size
of nature.