286 • FLORA HISTORICA. 



PERSICARIA. Polygonum Orientale. 



Natural Order Holoraccea. Polygonce., Juss : a Genus 

 of the Octandria Trygiiiia Class. 



'• _——««—_-. their rise they boast. 



From India's deserts or Columbia's coast." 



Europe is indebted to M. Tournefort for this 

 eastern plant, that celebrated botanist having 

 first noticed it growing in the Prince of Teslis's 

 garden in Georgia, and he afterwards procured 

 the seed from the garden of the monks of the 

 three churches near Mount Ararat, the spot on 

 which the ark is supposed to have rested, and 

 we have therefore made it the emblem of resto- 

 ration. 



The Duchess of Beaufort appears to have been 

 the earliest cultivator of the Oriental Persicaria 

 in this country, it having been introduced by her 

 Grace in the year 1707; and, although it is pro- 

 nounced to be a native of the East Indies, it has 

 so far become a denizen of our soil, that the 

 plants which spring spontaneously from the self- 

 sown seeds are generally finer than those raised 

 by art ; from which we may learn that the autumn 



