30 Bartonia ornata.
SYNONYM.
* B arto nia decapetala, Sims’s Bot. Mag.
The whole plant, except the petals, more or less scabrous with
short barbed hairs. Biennial; root long, succulent and fusiform. Stem
irregularly angular and much branched, two to four feet high. Leaves
alternate, sessile, oblong-lanceolate, interruptedly and sinuately pin-
natifid, six to eight inches long; segments three to six lines in length,
incurved, generally with one or two dentures on the lower side;
uppermost leaves ovate-lanceolate, or dilated at the base. Calix inseparably
investing the germ, border five-cleft, superior, segments
lanceolate, acuminate, persistent, an inch long. Flowers odorous, yellowish
white, of uncommon magnitude almost resembling some species
of Cactus, solitary and terminal, sessile. Petals ten, lanceolate-ovate,
concave and spreading, conspicuously unguiculate, acute, numerously
nerved, inserted upon the calix, about two inches long, the five interior
somewhat smaller. Stamina very numerous, from two hundred
to two hundred and fifty more or less, a little shorter than the corolla
and inserted also upon the calix; filaments scarcely attenuated, filiform
; anthers small, oblong, distinct, inserted upon the subulate summit
of the filament, about a line in length, two-celled. Germ appearing
inferior, being inseparably invested by the lower part of the calix.
Style filiform, a little longer than the stamina, tubular, arising from
the centre of the valves, longitudinally and spirally striate, nectariferBartonia
ornata. 31
ous at the basé, striæ five to seven, corresponding in number with
the valves of the capsule; distinct stigma none. Capsule cylindric-
oblong, one-celled, terminated by the persistent calix; summit flat
and orbicular, valvular, valves five to seven, opening from the centre;
receptacle parietal, placentulæ five to seven, succulent, two rows
of seeds in each. Seeds numerous, flat, subovate, nearly immargin-
ate; embryon straight, surrounded by a thin carnose perisperm; eoty-
ledones two, flat, white; radicle umbilical, inferior, exserted, plumule
inconspicuous. Hab. On the banks of the Missouri in broken argillaceous
soils. Flowering from the latter end of August through September,
and into October, but never in July. Niitt.
The genus Bartonia was named by Pursh and Nuttall in honour of
Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, a man who contributed greatly to the
scientific character of our country, and to whom American Botany,
particularly, is under immeasurable obligations for its early cultivation
and advancement.
The type of the genus, the very curious and elegant species here
figured, was discovered on the White Bluffs, near Maha Village, by
the late M. Lewis, Esq. in 1804. A second species of Bartonia, B.
nuda, is described by Pursh in Sims’s Botanical Magazine, in which
the germ is naked and the seeds winged. This species Mr. Nuttall
found on the banks of the Missouri. It is biennial likewise, has smaller
VOn. III. 9