Polemonium (rubrum), foliis pinnatifidis linearibus, floribus racemosis pendulis. Linn. Sp. Pl. ed. 3. p. 231.
Ipomea (rubra). Linn. Syst. Veg. 171.
Ipomopsis (elegans), minutim pubescens, foliis lineari-pinnatifidis. Mich. Fl. Boreali-Americ. 1. 142.
Quamoclit pinnatum erectum, floribus in thyrsum digestis. Dill. Hort. Elth. 321. tab. 241. fig. 312.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement.
2.The blossom spread open, with the chives attached.
3. The seed-bud and pointal, with the summit magnified
Although the Coronopus-leaved Cantua was cultivated in Sherard’s celebrated garden at Eltham, in the time of Dillenius, and is figured by him, in the Hort. Elth. above cited, as a species of Quamoclit, it has been an entire stranger to our modern gardens until very lately; having no doubt long since perished in all the old collections.
Who the reintroducer of this very elegant plant is, we have yet to learn: but the beautiful specimen here figured, was obligingly communicated to us by the Marquis of Blandford, from White Knights, Berks, about the end of November last.
It is a native of Carolina, and sufficiently hardy, we should think, to resist the cold of our ordinary winters: its root is herbaceous, and the plant admits of increase by parting the same, in spring or autumn.
Writers have differed in a very remarkable manner concerning the Genus to which they should refer this plant; and Linnæus himself seems to have been as undetermined as any of them concerning it; having at different times given it as a Polemonium, and an Ipomea; as will appear among our synonyms above. Michaux has called it Ipomopsis: and another foreign writer, whose work we have not got, has given it the appellation of Noothea Pulchella: but Willdenow has added it to the genus Cantua, with which we conceive, in our humble opinion, it sufficiently accords; and have therefore ventured to follow him in his arrangement of it.[Pg 111]