N. ORD.-LOBELIACEA:. ; 97 
Tribe.—LOBELIEE. 
GENUS.—LOBELIA,* LINN. 
SEX. SYST.—PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
LOBELIA CARDINALIS. 
CARDINAL FLOWER. 
SYN.—LOBELIA CARDINALIS, LINN.; L. COCCINEA, STOKES; TRACHE- 
LIUM AMERICANUM, PARK. 
COM. NAMES.—CARDINAL FLOWER, SCARLET OR RED LOBELIA, HIGH- 
BELIA; (FR.) LOBELIE CARDINALE; (GER.) ROTHE KARDINALS 
BLUME. 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANT LOBELIA CARDINALIS, LINN. 
Description.—This showy perennial grows to a height of from 2 to 4 feet. 
Stem minutely pubescent or glabrous, commonly simple. Leaves oblong-ovate, to 
oblong-lanceolate, tapering at both ends, sessile, and irregularly serrate or serru- 
late. Jnflorescence a dense, terminal, more or less one-sided virgate raceme; 
flowers large and showy, intense red, or rose-color, sometimes pure white; pedicels 
erect or ascending; évacts of the upper portion linear-lanceolate, of the lower, 
leafy. Calyx smooth; fube short, hemispherical, much shorter than the lobes; 
lobes \inear-subulate. Corolla+ gamopetalous, tubular; ¢#de about 1 inch long, 
straight; 4mé bilabiate; upper “p 2-parted to the base, the cleft extending down 
to the calyx, the lobes erect, linear-lanceolate ; dower Zp 3-cleft, spreading plane or 
slightly recurved, the segments oblong-lanceolate. Stamens free from the tube of 
the corolla, monadelphous almost to the base, exserted through the cleft in the 
corolla tube, which they again enter between the two upper lobes; f/aments red; 
anthers syngenesious, curved, blue, the two larger ones naked at the tip, the other 
three ciliate. Capsule hemispherical, thin-walled, 2-celled, and loculicidally 2-valved 
at the summit. Seeds numerous, oblong, rugulose-tuberculate, similar to those of 
L. inflata, 
Lobeliaceze.—This large family, closely related to Campanulacea, is represented 
in North America, by 7 genera and 31 species, characterized in general as follows: 
Herbs (when not Tropical) with acrid, milky juice. Leaves alternate, simple; 
stipules none. Inflorescence racemose; flowers 5-merous, perfect. Calyx adnate 
to the ovary; “md divided down to the ovary, or entire; /odes persistent when 
present. Corolla regular and perigynous, inserted with the stamens just where 
the calyx leaves the ovary; “mb disposed to become. bilabiate ; Zodes 5, valvate in 
* Dedicated to Mathias de L’Obel, a Flemish herbalist, Botanist to James I. 
t In describing this organ, I adopt the position it stands in while flowering. See Lodeliacce, 
