Addisonia 75 



(Platens) 

 JUSSIAEA PERUVIANA 



Marsh Evening-primrose 



Native from peninsular Florida to South America 

 Family Onagraceae Evening-primrose Family 



Jussiaea peruviana L. Sp. PI. 388. 1753. 



A perennial plant, partly woody, the stems fourteen feet tall or 

 less, widely branched, hirsute, with a reddish or brown bark which 

 comes off as shreds on the stems and older branches. The leaves 

 are alternate, numerous, and deep-green. The blades are thick- 

 herbaceous, ovate, oval, elliptic, lanceolate, or elliptic-lanceolate, 

 mostly two to four inches long, or longer, acute or somewhat 

 acuminate, or sometimes obtuse, more or less acuminate at the 

 base, short-petioled or those near the ends of the branches sessile 

 or nearly so, more or less pubescent, sometimes sparingly, at other 

 times quite copiously, but always with fewer hairs above than 

 beneath; they are entire, and with numerous upwardly curved 

 lateral veins which are particularly prominent beneath and unite 

 to form an intramarginal vein. The flowers are solitary at the ends 

 of short, naked, axillary branches, subtended by a pair of bracts 

 which are usually deciduous in anthesis or soon after. The bracts 

 are narrowly elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, and acuminate. The 

 hypanthium is turbinate in anthesis and closely fine-pubescent. 

 The four persistent sepals are lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, one 

 third to two thirds of an inch long, acuminate, ciliate, pubescent 

 with short and long hairs without and glabrous within. The corolla 

 is bright yellow, showy, two to two and a half inches wide. The 

 four petals are very broad, the blades varying from suborbicular to 

 orbicular-reniform, more or less notched at the apex, entire, short- 

 clawed, pinnately veined. The stamens are usually eight in number, 

 borne on the edge of the hypanthium and surrounding a stylo- 

 podium. The filaments are subulate, alternately shorter and slender 

 and longer and stout. The anthers are narrowly ellipsoid, as long 

 as the filaments or slightly shorter. The ovary is inferior and with 

 the top covered by the stylopodium. The style is short and stout, 

 urceolate, usually with a wider top than base. The stigma is ovoid 

 and four-lobed. The capsules are oblong-pyramidal or pyramidal- 

 obovoid, one half to three quarters of an inch long, topped with the 

 somewhat accrescent stylopodium, crowned with the persistent 

 sepals, 4-ribbed, the sides pubescent, more copiously so about the 

 ribs, along which they usually rupture. The seeds are very numer- 

 ous, obliquely ellipsoid, about one twenty-fourth of an inch long, 

 yellowish, shining. 



As modern civilization advanced into Florida, botanical explora- 



