Addisonia 79 



(Plate 120) 

 DIANTHERA CRASSIFOLIA 

 Florida Water-willow 



Native of Florida 

 Family Acanthaceab Acanthus Family 



Dianthera crassifolia Chapm. Fl. S. U. S. 304. 1860. 



A perennial plant, with horizontal, often branched, succulent, 

 nodose rootstocks. The stems are solitary, tufted or gregarious, 

 four to sixteen inches tall, sometimes branched at the base, succulent 

 and glabrous. The leaves are opposite, quite various; those of the 

 lowest pair have orbicular, oval, ovate, or obovate blades, those on 

 the lower part of the stem, spatulate to linear-spatulate, those on the 

 upper part of the stem, linear-lanceolate to linear, often narrowly 

 so, or sometimes all narrowly linear above the lowest pair or two; 

 all gradually or abruptly narrowed into short and stout petioles. 

 The blades are entire but often wavy-margined, or sometimes 

 obscurely toothed. The flowers are borne in long-peduncled elon- 

 gate virgate spike-Hke panicles, each subtended by an involucre-like 

 group of bracts. The calyx is green, usually a quarter to a half 

 inch long, with linear acuminate lobes which stand erect or nearly so. 

 The corolla is rose-purple, except for some paler figuring in the 

 throat and on the lower lip, and the base of the tube, which is 

 green or sometimes pink or nearly white; it is three quarters of an 

 inch to one inch long, the tube very short and somewhat swollen; 

 the limb consists of a narrow upper lip, reflexed and two-lobed at 

 the apex, and a very broad spreading three-lobed lower lip with the 

 middle lobe slightly notched at the apex and the somewhat narrower 

 lateral lobes entire. The filaments and anther-connective are pale. 

 The anther-sacs are dark brown, one twelfth to one eighth of an 

 inch long. The ovary is conic and terminated by a filiform style, 

 with obtuse stigmas. The capsule is about one inch long or less, 

 with an ellipsoid body which terminates a stipe-like base of about 

 equal length. The seeds are orbicular, flat, and about one sixth 

 of an inch in diameter. 



In the northern states many are well acquainted with the water- 

 willow, Dianthera americana, which grows in often extensive patches 

 or large areas on flat shores or about islands. The stems are often 

 partly submerged. That plant is relatively large but its flowers 

 are rather inconspicuous. 



In the southern states there are several smaller water-wUlows, 

 but their flowers, although mostly white, are much more con- 

 spicuous than those of the northern plant. However, the most 

 showy of all is the one here illustrated. It is an inhabitant of 



