LOBELIA TEIBE 207 



is grown in gardens in Spain, where it is termed Rahienta cavallos. Still 

 more noxious than this is the L. tupa, of which Fcuillee says, that even the 

 odour of the flower causes excessive vomiting, and that, if applied to the 

 skin, it produces violent inflammation and pain. The juice of several species 

 of Lobelia, if it touches the eyes, causes immediate pain ; and such also, 

 doubtless, would be the result with our native acrid kind. Some of the 

 species, however, seem innoxious, and Thunberg mentions that the root of 

 a Lobelia is commonly eaten in Japan ; while in the case of L. tenella the 

 milky juice is mild and insipid. Several plants of the genus, growing in 

 tropical regions, have a thick milky juice, which contains caoutchouc. 



Neither of our wild species is common, but our gardens contain several 

 well-known and handsome Lobelias. The rich scarlet Cardinal-flower, 

 L. cardindlis, so frequent on our borders, was mentioned by Parkinson in 

 the time of Charles L as a " brave plant." It grows commonly by rivers 

 and ditches, in many parts of North America. Still more brilliant in hue 

 are the Refulgent and Splendid Lobelias (L. fulgens and L. spUndens), Avhich 

 Humboldt and Bonpland introduced to our gardens, the first flowers of this 

 kind grown there having been obtained from the seeds in the herbarium 

 which these travellers brought with them from Mexico. The Splendid 

 Lobelia is beautifully dashed with claret colour. The Cardinal-flower, so 

 called from some resemblance in its blossoms to the scarlet hat of the 

 cardinal, has its synonym in most countries of Europe. Thus, the Germans 

 call it Kardinalsblume ; the Dutch, Kardinalsbloem., and the Italians, Fior 

 Cardinale. The little L. gracilis, so frequent in gardens, is, like our wild 

 species, of blue colour, but the prevailing hue of the genus is scarlet. 



2. Water Lobelia {L. dmimdnna). — Stem simple; leaves almost 

 cylindrical, of two parallel tubes, blunt ; flowers in a distant raceme ; 

 perennial. This very elegant aquatic plant is found in abundance in the 

 picturesque lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; but it is not confined 

 to them, occurring in several pieces of water, especially such as lie among 

 mountains in the north and west of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in 

 several parts of North Wales. The gravelly bases of our northern lakes are, 

 in July and August, often covered with a thick matted carpet formed by its 

 leaves, the flowering portion of the stem being usually the only part of the 

 plant which rises above the water. This stalk or stem is slender, almost 

 leafless, a foot or more high, having a long and distant cluster of light blue 

 drooping flowers. A number of fibres creep forth and descend from, a firm 

 white fleshy root-stock ; and the root as well as herbage of the flower 

 contains a milky juice, which is much less acrid than that of most of the 

 species. It received its specific name from Dortmann, an apothecary, who 

 first sent it to Clusius. 



Order XLIX. VACCINIEiE— CRANBERRY TRIBE. 



Calyx gi-owing from the ovary, of 4 — 6 lobes, which are sometimes from 

 their shallowness scarcely perceptible ; corolla of one petal, lobed like the 

 calyx ; stamens not united, twice as many as the lobes of the corolla, inserted 



