acute, and appearing very much so by the convolution of their margins
towards the apex; they are flax-flower-blue, darker in the centre and
towards the base, where this colour is abruptly terminated by a white,
dentated splotch. Filaments about one-eighth of an inch long, white,
cohering at the base. Anthers erect, gamboge-yellow, more than a
quarter of an inch in length, at first erect, afterwards, when the pollen
is thrown out, becoming involuted. Pistils six, emerging by pairs from
between each two anthers—they are white below, tipped with blue
stigmas, and tinged with the same colour half then’ length. Grows in
the Arkansa Territory, whence roots were brought by Mr. Nuttall.
The specimen from which the drawing was made, flowered this summer
at the Botanic Garden of Kingsess. The second flower bloomed on
the twelfth of May, and by the politeness of Col. Carr, the proprietor,
an opportunity was afforded me of figuring it during the very short time
it continued in bloom. So very evanescent is the caerulean hue of
this flower, that it faded perceptibly in thirty minutes, and so transitory
was its bloom that in the lapse of little more than an hour, its petals,
became convoluted, and the flower was folded up. The anthers became
involuted immediately after the discharge of pollen, which soon
occurred when the flower expanded.
The venerable William Bartram, who is still living at Kingsess Gardens,
mentions in his travels into Florida that he met with whole
fields of the Ixia ceelestina. The visits of late botanists not having
thrown his plant in their way, led some to doubt whether Mr. Bartram
had really met with an Ixia, or whether he had not mistaken
some other plant for it. Mr. Nuttall, however, has corroborated the
account of Mr. Bartram, by meeting with two or three species of Ixia,
one of which is here figured. This circumstance has afforded great
gratification to the venerable naturalist, whose plant however appears
to have been another species of the same genus. The figure he has
given of it in his travels, besides having larger flowers, differs from this
in the ovate-obtuse petals, as well as in the shape and size of the anthers
and filaments. When I commenced the drawing of the plant in
the presence of Mr. Bartram, he was of opinion that the flowering
plant was the same he had seen and figured. A little more attention
to the characters to which I attracted his attention, however, convinced
him it was a different species. Not seeing good reason to separate the
genus from Ixia, as Mr. Nuttall has hinted the propriety of doing, in
his travels, the figure of this rare and new plant is here presented to botanists
as a second species of the Ixia caelestina of Bartram, and I have
designated it by the specific appellation acuta, to distinguish it from
that plant, the petals of which, as has already been mentioned, are
very obtuse.
The drawing represents the plant of the size of nature.