RHEXIA VIRGINICA. 



MEADOW-BEAUTY. 



NATURAL ORDER, MELASTOMACE^. 



RHEXIA VIRGINICA, Liiinajus. — Stem square, the angles narrowly winged; leaves sessile, 

 oval-lanceolate, ciliate-serrulatc, and, with the stem, clothed with scattered hairs ; calyx 

 hispid; stem one foot or more high, often three-forked above ; leaves with three (rarely 

 five or seven) prominent veins, one to three inches long, about half as wide, acute ; flow- 

 ers large, in corymbous cvmes; petals bright purple, obovate, hispid beneath, caducous; 

 anthers long and prominent, crooked, golden-yellow above, with a purple Ime beneath; 

 style somewhat longer than the stamens, a little declined. (Wood's Class-Book of Botany. 

 See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, and Chapman's 

 Flora of the Southern United States.) 



Ie have had occasion to remark before that it is not cus- 

 ^^__ ternary to trace botanical names beyond the time of Lin- 

 nix;us, and that he is therefore frequently credited with names 

 which he found in use, and simply adopted. It is so in this case, 

 for Linnceus himself informs us, in his "Genera Plantarum," 

 that Gronovius gave the name RItcxia to the genus to which 

 this plant belongs. But why the genus should have been called 

 Rhexia has never been understood. Linnceus, in his " Philo- 

 sophia Botanica," under the head of names derived from med- 

 ical virtues, says it is from the Greek rhcxis, which signifies a 

 rupture. Prof. Wood gives this etymology, and adds, "some 

 of the species are good vulneraries," — vulneraries being drugs 

 useful in the cure of wounds. The authority for these state- 

 ments, however, is not very apparent ; and it is a singular fact 

 that not only the genus, but also the whole order to which it 

 belongs, seems to be strikingly destitute of medical qualities, all 

 the virtues generally attributed to these plants being summed 

 up in the statement that they are " slightly astringent." 



