WESTERN CARDINAL-FLOWER.
Lobelia splendens, Willd. Lobelia Family.
Stems.—Two to four feet tall; slender, smooth or nearly so. Leaves.—Alternate; mostly sessile; lanceolate or almost linear; glandular-denticulate. Flowers.—In an elongated, wandlike raceme; cardinal red. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Corolla.—With straight tube, over an inch long and split down the upper side; border two-lipped; upper lip with two rather erect lobes; lower spreading and three-cleft, with lobes three to six lines long. Stamens.—Five; united into a tube above. Anthers somewhat hairy. Ovary.—Two-celled. Style simple. Stigma two-lobed. Hab.—San Diego, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties, and eastward to Texas.
The Western cardinal-flower quite closely resembles L. cardinalis of the East, differing from it in a few minor points only. I have never been fortunate enough to see it; but I am told that it is a magnificent plant, and that from July to September many a wet spot in our southern mountain cañons is made gay with its brilliant blossoms.
Of the Eastern plant Mr. Burroughs writes: "But when vivid color is wanted, what can surpass or equal our cardinal-flower? There is a glow about this flower, as if color emanated from it as from a live coal. The eye is baffled and does not seem to reach the surface of the petal; it does not see the texture or material part as it does in other flowers, but rests in a steady, still radiance. It is not so much something colored as it is color itself. And then the moist, cool, shady places it affects usually, where it has no rivals, and where the large, dark shadows need just such a dab of fire! Often, too, we see it double, its reflected image in some dark pool heightening its effect."