224 



HENDERSON'S HANDBOOK OF PLANTS 



LIA 



G. violacea (purple), the species best known to 

 cultivation, are of easy management, and are 

 propagated by cuttings made of the young 

 shoots, when the base is hardened a little. 



Lia'tris. Blazing Star. Button Snake Root. 

 Derivation of the name unknown. Nat. Ord. 

 CompositcB. 



This genus consists of some twenty species, 

 all hardy herbaceous perennials, common 

 from New York to Kansas and southward. 

 Some of the species are very ornamental 

 border plants. They all produce long spikes 

 of purple flowers from August until October, 

 L. pycnostachya (Kansas Gay Feather), one of 

 the finest of the species, has rosy purple 

 flowers, on a spike three to four feet high. 

 They begin to flower at the top of 

 the spike, and continue to open downward, 

 which is characteristic of the species. They 

 are increased by seed, will flower the second 

 year, and will grow anywhere and bloom well ; 

 the size and length of the spike will, however, 

 be in proportion to the richness of the soil. 



Liber. The inner lining of the bark Exogens, 

 where alone its woody matter resides. 



Libe'rtia. Named after MademoiHelle M. A. 

 Liebert de Malmedy, a Belgian lady and bota- 

 nist. Nat. Ord. Iridacece. 



A small genus of half-hardy bulbs, natives 

 of Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and 

 Chili. They are of dwarf habit, with delicate 

 white flowers, which are produced in umbels 

 on a scape one and a half feet high. L. formosa 

 produces spikes of flowers of snowy white- 

 ness more like those of some delicate Orchid 

 than of an out-door plant. L. ixioides and 

 L. Magellanica are also very attractive when 

 in flower. They are increased by offsets ; in- 

 troduced in 1822. 



Liboce'drus. From lihanos, incense, and ce- 

 drus, the cedar ; the wood being fragrant and 

 resembling the cedar. Nat. Ord. Coniferm. 



This genus consists of handsome evergreen 

 trees, natives of Chili and New Zealand. They 

 are nearly related to the Arbor-Vitee, differing 

 only the form of their cones. They are fine 

 timber trees, growing to an immense size. 

 Spars eighty or ninety feet long, are obtain- 

 able from L. Chilensis, and a single tree often 

 yields as many as 1,500 boards. Its grain, too, 

 is so straight and equal that it can be split 

 into shingles, which look as though they had 

 been dressed with a plane. These trees are 

 not hardy in the Northern States. 



Libo'nia. Named after M. Libon, a traveler in 

 Brazil. Nat. Ord. Acanihacem. 



A genus of handsome flowering plants from 

 Brazil. L. Jloribunda, the only species yet 

 knoviTi, is a small suffruticose plant, with 

 elliptic oblong leaves, and very abundant 

 tubular, yellow-tipped scarlet flowers, one or 

 two from each leaf axil. The calyx is five 

 cleft : the corolla tubular, with an erect 

 bilabiate limb ; two stamens affixed to the 

 middle of the tube, with two-celled cordate- 

 ovate anthers, one cell inserted higher than 

 the other; disk annulate; style filiform, with 

 a punctate stigma. The flowers are droop- 

 ing, very abundant, and exceedingly orna- 

 mental. The leaves are apt to drop if the 

 plant is allowed to suffer for water. L. Pen- 

 rtiosiensis, a seedling from the above, obtained 



Lie 



by crossing it with Sericograpis (Jacobinia) 

 Ghiesbrechtiana, is in many respects a decided 

 improvement. The plant is dwarfer and of 

 denser growth ; the foliage is darker, larger, 

 and more persistent; the flowers are even 

 more abundant, there being from four to six 

 at the axils instead of two, with more red and 

 less yellow ; and they malie their appearance 

 earlier. These plants should be grown in the 

 green-house, where they will flower from 

 November till Spring. They are also excellent 

 sitting-room plants, and worthy of a place in 

 any collection They grow best in a moder- 

 ately rich loam, and are easily increased by 

 cuttings; introduced in 1864. This genus is 

 now included by Bentham and Hooker under 

 Jacobinia, but the plants are best known by 

 their former names. 



Lichens. Lichens, as they are in form among 

 the simplest of plants, so they may be called 

 the pioneers of the vegetable kingdom. They 

 are in general parasitical plants, living upon 

 the bark of trees, or on the moist ground, or 

 even upon the bare rocks. The sporules of 

 the lichen are furnished with a gummy and 

 adhesive fluid, and being scattered about by 

 the winds they fall upon bare rocks, and to 

 these attach themselves. Without soil, and 

 simply from the moisture and from the air, 

 they vegetate and form a small central lichen ; 

 others grow in circles around, till, in process 

 of time, the whole surface of the bare rock 

 becomes covered with a hoary coat. These 

 lichens periodically decay, and mouldering to 

 the earth form with the particles of abraided 

 rock, a soil which is fitted for the reception 

 of other plants further advanced in the scale 

 or organization. Lichens are found at the 

 extreme points of vegetation, on the summits 

 of high mountains, and near the poles, where 

 all other vegetable bodies disappear. In the 

 Arctic regions, the hunters prepare an im- 

 portant article of food from one of the species 

 that is there found in great abundance where 

 there is scarcely a particle of soil, and where 

 the snow rarely disappears. 



The Iceland Mess. — Cetraria islandica is 

 used as an edible substance by the Icelanders, 

 who rarely obtain corn bread, and whose 

 limited stock of substitutes obliges them to 

 have recourse to every species of vegetable 

 production which is permitted by their in- 

 clement climate to spring forth. The plant is 

 collected by the inhabitants of this northern 

 region; and after being washed, is cut into 

 pieces, or it is dried by the fire or in the sun. 

 then put into a bag which is well beaten. It 

 is ultimately worked into a powder by being 

 trampled on, and in this state is used as food. 

 This lichen contains a nutritious matter 

 called lichen-starch, along with a bitter 

 principle. When boiled and macerated in 

 water it forms, a nutritious and light jelly, 

 which, with the addition of sugar and milk, 

 has been used as a dietetic medicine in cases of 

 decline, and was fancied at one time as a cure 

 for consumption. 



The Reindeee Moss. — Cladonia rangiferina 

 grows in great abundance in the north of 

 Europe, especially in Lapland, where it con- 

 stitutes almost the sole winter food of the 

 reindeer, that useful animal, without which 

 the natives of that barren region could not 

 exist. Linneeus assures us that this lichen 



