Dodecatheon Meadia. Mead's Dodecatheon, or American Cowslip.
Class and Order.
Pentandria Monogynia.
Generic Character.
Corolla rotata, reflexa. Stamina tubo insidentia. Capsula unilocularis, oblonga.
Specific Character and Synonyms.
DODECATHEON Meadia. Lin. Syst. Vegetab. p. 163. Sp. Plant. p. 163.
MEADIA Catesb. Car. 3. p. 1. t. 1. Trew. Ehret. t. 12.
AURICULA ursi virginiana floribus boraginis instar rostratis, cyclaminum more reflexis. Pluk. alm. 62. t. 79. f. 6.
This plant grows spontaneously in Virginia and other parts of North America, from whence, as Miller informs us, it was sent by Mr. Banister to Dr. Compton, Lord Bishop of London, in whose curious garden he first saw it growing in the year 1709.
It is figured by Mr. Catesby, in his Natural History of Carolina, among the natural productions of that country, who bestowed on it the name of Meadia, in honour of the late Dr. Mead, a name which Linnæus has not thought proper to adopt as a generic, though he has as a trivial one.