106 MELITTIS SPECIOSA. 



MELITTIS SPECIOSA. 



Showy Bastard-Balm. 

 Linnean Class — Didynamia. Order — Gymnospermia. Natural Order — Labiate. 



Feom the paucity of strictly hardy subjects during the winter and spring months, 

 we have been obliged to admit into the plates of the last few numbers a greater 

 number of half-hardy plants than we wished, and perhaps than many of our 

 Subscribers themselves desired. Now, however, that the season for the hardier 

 plants has fairly arrived, we intend to figure a larger proportion of this class of 

 subjects ; and of this intention we offer an earnest in the present number, all the 

 figures being those of plants perfectly hardy, and which require little or no care in 

 their cultivation. This remark is especially true of the fourth illustration, which 

 will doubtless be recognized by some of our readers as an indigenous plant. This, 

 however, is no valid reason for refusing it a place among cultivated ones, for 

 assuredly there are many exotics commonly seen in our gardens of a less showy 

 character than the Melittis speciosa. We have never had the good fortune to meet 

 with the plant in a wild state, our botanical rambles not having extended to the 

 southern counties where alone it occurs ; but we entertain little doubt that it has 

 rarely been seen by collectors, without exciting a desire to transfer it from the shady 

 haunts in which it delights to a more conspicuous position in the flower borders. 

 Its flowers are, next to those of the Salvias and Phlomis, among the largest of any 

 of the Laliatm, or Lipworts, and, were it increased by seed instead of the ordinary 

 mode of dividing the roots, there is every probability that a further increase 

 of size might be effected, and perhaps its colour deepened or brightened, 

 especially as there appears a natural disposition in the flowers to vary their 

 tint. 



The Melittis speciosa is, then, a hardy, herbaceous perennial, growing about 

 twelve to eighteen inches high, with long, oval, pointed, and toothed leaves, in 

 opposite pairs, soft to the touch, and possessing a slight balm-like odour. The 

 flowers are produced in the axils of the leaves, in groups of three to six, and 

 usually at every joint in the case of strong plants. The calyx is large, of an 

 inflated cup-like form and two lipped, the upper lip generally three-toothed, the 

 lower one divided into two large teeth or lobes. The corolla protrudes often an 

 inch or more from the calyx, and like that is two-lipped ; the upper lip is slightly 

 convex and entire, the lower one three-lobed, and, when the flower is fully 

 expanded, reflexed downwards. The ground colour is pale flesh, the centre of 

 the lower lip being of a dark plum purple, with the extreme margin whitish. 



