94 WesTER: HISTORY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ROSELLE 
describe it a little more accurately and present to the reader a 
clearer and better illustration which I have taken from Jacob 
Plateau.”’ (FIGURE 2.) 
“Tt has an upright stem, striped, purplish, and is two or three 
cubits high or even higher if it is planted in rich soil in the garden, 
if it is planted in pots it is much shorter. The leaves grow around 
the stem from the bottom not in a regular series, but sparsely 
scattered here and there; the lower ones are somewhat serrate, 
but not laciniate, those in the middle are divided into five, similar 
to the leaves of the Cannabinus, and at the very top it ends ina 
sort of spike of little buds and narrow leaves. A single, slightly 
spiny calyx is inserted in each axil, from which grows a flower with 
five large petals, pale white with the tips dyed a deep, blackish 
purple, radiating over the petals, the center of the flower is occupied 
as in the Althaea called bladder-wort or Hypecoum Matthioli, by 
many stamens with yellow apices and a white style branched above 
the middle; the flowers are followed very quickly by short, spiny 
acuminate, pentagonal heads, containing a seed almost like that 
of the Stramonium; the root consists of a great number of whitish 
fibers, but it is not perennial, but must be sown anew every year, 
and with us at least it seldom seeds, for it begins to bloom 
late, about the end of August or the beginning of September 
(Netherlands) and as it does not bear cold at all well, the first 
frost kills it. It seems to like the rays of the morning sun and 
frequent watering. The seed was first sent to us from Italy under 
the name of Sabdarifa (I do not know whether it was given this 
name in its native habitat) then from Spain under the genus Malva, 
Indica elegans; there is scarcely any doubt that it is to be referred 
to the Malva and to the class Alceae, therefore I have given it the 
name Alcea Americana.” 
While Clusius does not state this expressly we may infer from 
the name he gave the roselle that he considered the species to be 
of American origin.* 
Bauhin f{ referred to it a few years later as ‘Alcea indica 
magno flore.’’ J. Gerarde describes the plant thus in his Herball, 
1636, p. 936, under the name etombuds ss Mallow. 
y Pickering, in Coicpalosiag ineey of Plants, 1879, associated with the 
roselle end plant described by Hernandez as quauhxocotl, in Nova Plantarum Animale 
t Mineralium Mexicanorum Historia, is not clear, as not sac is ue 
eae ete that of another plant but he closes the description by sa that ‘The 
leaves of Alcea Americana (the roselle) are similar”’ (to this plant), ich which plant 
Hernandez celia was familiar from Spain. 
+ n,C. Pinax Theatri Botanici 317. 1623. 
