120 THE PLANT WORIvD 



flatwoods, especially where fire has burnt the old grass, are a sheet of 

 white color and the large lily-like flowers pervade the air with a delicate 

 spring-like fragrance. This is the zephyr flower or "Easter lily" 

 {Zephyr anthes Treatiae), its beauty lasting for several weeks. Among them 

 we find frequently the orange-yellow button-like blossoms of Poly gala hdea 

 and the exquisite yellow Pingiiiada lutea (called here the Florida prim- 

 rose), and the blue Pingidcula elatior . The three bloom, all winter long, 

 but they are particularly fine at present and in company of the zephyr- 

 anthes. The first blossoms of the yellow water-lily and of the white 

 water-lily, both very fragrant, are now opening. The number of deli- 

 cate and beautiful flowers in the woods is so large that I can only men- 

 tion a very few. The Cherokee bean is one of the most conspicuous. 

 Attired in rich crimson it is a great ornament wherever found. The 

 blue-eyed grass, the fine Florida iris (/rw hexagona), the Nemastylis 

 coelestis, the star-grass {^Hypoxis ereda) are in full bloom. The creep- 

 ing Clitoria viariana, producing an abundance of showy large flowers 

 which vary a good deal in color and are at times very sweet-scented, and 

 a yellow and a rosy-red vetch, are fine plants near the house where the 

 ground is not worked very often. Mitchella repens, the partridge berry, 

 fulfils its mission of adorning the ground underneath magnolias and wild 

 olives with an evergreen carpet. It is now in flower, exhaling its deli- 

 cate fragrance from the twin- blossoms. Among the waxy flowers will 

 be found many of the bright red berries. The fringe tree, growing 

 in the same locality, is a mass of white bloom. On dryer soil the white 

 stars of Oldenlandia rotioidi folia, a tiny plant clinging close to the ground, 

 are most abundant. They are found almost throughout the year. The 

 large rosette-like prostrate masses of Commelina communis, bearing flowers 

 of a lovely heavenly blue in the greatest profusion, are opening their first 

 buds. In June and July these masses of blue arrest the attention even 

 of those who do not care much for the beauty of nature. They always 

 remind me of a small tuberous-rooted commelina of Texas, with flowers 

 almost as fragrant as a heliotrope. A delicate tradescantia with rosy- 

 purple flowers is at present abundant among the grass. 



The floral show of the gardens, however, outrivals by far that of the 

 woodlands. Earge bushes of pink and white oleanders, covered with a 

 sheet of bloom from top to bottom , have a wonderful effect on the bushes 

 of the garden and among magnolias and huge wax myrtles. The flowers 

 are so showy that large bushes in full bloom can be seen a mile away. 

 The pink-flowered kind is deliciously fragrant. As they are ablaze with 

 flowers for at least two months of the year the oleanders belong to the 

 most satisfactory and valuable shrubs of our Florida gardens. Different 

 kinds of pinks, verbenas, marigolds {Tagetes), nasturtiums, antirrhinums 

 (snapdragon), and petunias are all in full bloom. The cosmos shows a 



