N. ORD.—LOBELIACEAS. 98 
GENUS.—LOBELIA, LINN. 
SEX. SYST.—PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
LOBELIA SYPHILITICA- 
GREAT BLUE LOBELILA. 
SYN .—LOBELIA SYPHILITICA, LINN.; LOBELIA C@iRULEA? LOBELIA 
#3 GLANDULOSA, LINDL.; LOBELIA REFLEXA, STOKES. 
(com. NAMES.—GREAT LOBELIA, BLUE LOBELIA, BLUE CARDINAL 
~—~_FLOWER; (FR.) LOBELIE SYPHILITIQUE; (GER.) GEMEINE LOBELIE. 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE FRESH PLANT, LOBELIA SYPHILITICA, LINN. 
Description.—This erect, perennial herb, attains a growth of from 1 to 3 feet, 
its conspicuous racemes being generally from one-third to one-quarter the length 
of the whole plant. Stew simple, leafy to the base of the raceme, and somewhat 
hairy, especially upon its angles. Leaves sessile, ovate-lanceolate, irregularly 
denticulate-serrate, acute at the base, from 2 to 6 inches long, and about 1 inch 
wide; thin, and more or less appressed hairy. /xflorescence supra-axillary, com- 
posed of a long, at first leafy, then morphologically bracted, dense spike or 
raceme; fedicels shorter than the bracts; flowers light blue, nearly 1 inch long 
extending beyond the leafy bracts. Ca/yx five-cleft, hirsute, shorter than the tube 
of the corolla, with reflexed, conspicuous, two-cleft auricles at the sinuses; /udbe 
hemispherical, short ; odes one-half the length of the corolla. Corvol/a with a straight, 
sub-cylindrical tube, more or less two-lipped, having a deep fissure at the superior 
margin; upper lip of two erect, slightly diverging lobes; /ower 4p spreading and 
three-lobed by incision. /7uzt a globose pod, free above, but enclosed by the 
loose, persistent calyx; two-celled, opening at the apex; seeds many. For a de- 
scription of the Natural Order, see Lobelia cardinalis, 97. 
History and Habitat.—The great blue lobelia habits the borders of marshy 
places and wet spots in pasture lands and meadows, pretty generally throughout 
the United States, to which it is indigenous; flowering from July to September. 
In some localities it is called igh de/a, in unconscious pun upon its lowlier but 
more frequently-used companion, L. inflata, or dow delta, as they term it. The 
lobelias furnish one of the best examples of the system of cross-fertilization in 
plants. The stamens, especially their anthers, grow into a tube, enclosing the 
stigma, and apparently making self-fertilization positive. A closer study, how- 
ever, reveals the following conclusive points: The stigma is two-lobed, the recep- 
* Dr. Hale, in his “*‘ New Remedies,” treats of this drug as Lobelia ccerulea. Dr. Allen remarks that—as there are 
2 number of blue lobelias, and beside this the true caru/ea grows at the Cape of Good Hope, and may yet be proven— 
syphilitica should always designate this drug. 
