THE CARICATURE PLANT.
By M. A.
One of the most remarkable plants in the whole vegetable kingdom is that known to botanists as the Justicia Picta, which has also been well named "The Caricature Plant."
At first sight, it appears to be a heavy, large-leafed plant, with purple blossoms, chiefly remarkable for the light-yellow centers of its dark-green leaves, which cause them to look as if some acid had been spilled upon them and taken the color out wherever it had touched.
As I stood looking at this odd plant and thinking what a sickly, blighted appearance the queer, yellow stains gave it, I was suddenly impressed with the fact that the plant was "making faces" at me. Still, unaccustomed as I was to seeing plants indulge in this strictly human amusement, I was slow to believe it, and stooped to read the somewhat illegible inscription on the card below the plant—"Justicia Picta, or 'Caricature Plant.'" My first impression was correct then. This curious shrub had indeed occupied itself in growing up in ridiculous caricatures of the "human face divine," until it now stood, covered from the topmost leaf down, with the queerest faces imaginable. Nature had taken to caricaturing. The flesh-colored profiles stood out in strong relief against the dark-green of the leaves.
A discovery of one of these vegetable marks leads to an examination of a second and a third leaf, until all are scanned as closely and curiously as the leaves of the comic papers that form the caricature plants of the literary kingdom.
What a valuable plant this would be for one of our professional caricaturists to have growing in his conservatory! When an order was sent to him for a "speaking likeness" of some unhappy politician, he could simply visit his Justicia Picta with pencil and paper in hand, and look over the leaves for a suitable squint, grin, or distorted nose to sketch from. He could, moreover, affirm with truth that the portrait was "taken from nature." Cuthbert Collingwood, the celebrated naturalist, says of the Justicia Picta: "One of these plants in the garden of Gustave Doré would be worth a fortune to him, supplying him with a never-failing fund of grotesque physiognomies, from which he might illustrate every serio-comic romance ever written." I have never heard of the cultivation of the Caricature Plant in this country; but botanists tell us that it is a hardy shrub. I think we should be glad to see the funny faces on its leaves. After all the lovely flowers we are called upon to admire, I am sure that a plant evidently intended to make us laugh would receive a warm welcome from our young people.
The Chinese appreciate the Caricature Plant, and in some parts of China it is quite extensively cultivated. Perhaps some of the funny, grinning faces on Chinese toys and ornaments are reproductions of the grotesque features on the leaves of the plant.
Finally, I must assure any unbelieving readers of St. Nicholas that neither in this account of a very remarkable plant, nor in the accompanying illustration, has the writer drawn upon imagination.
THE CARICATURE PLANT.
The Justicia Picta really exists. It is a native of the East Indies, and is a source of much amusement and curiosity to both botanists and travelers.