28 ON THE CULTURE OF JUSTICIA FLAVICOMA. 



latest publication of " The Hortus Brittanicus." The genus, or 

 family, fonns one of the members of the tribe Acanthaceae, con- 

 stituting the 145th order of the sub-class Thalamiflorae, in the 

 natural classification. 



Acanthus is the type of the order, and the term is derived from 

 a Greek word which signifies a plant or shrub abounding with 

 thorn (AxavOa). The plants of this tribe, however, are peculiarly 

 noted for the elasticity of their seed-vessels (capsules), and the 

 curiously hooked processes by which the seeds are attached. Their 

 stems also are swollen just above the axils of the leaves, and these 

 swellings give them a very peculiar appearance ; cuttings at these 

 joints strike with facility ; generally speaking, this may be consi- 

 dered as the fact. 



In the Linnsean system Justicia belongs to Class II. Order I. 

 Diandria Monogynia ; and is found in the second section of that 

 order. The flowers are inferior, monopetalous, and irregular. 

 The calvx is five parted, tubulous, equal. Corolla ringent, or 

 gaping, divided into two nearly equal parts ; the upper part or lip 

 arched, and often reflexed ; the lower lip divided into two or three 

 equal parts, which are more or less reflexed or curled backward 

 and inward. Anthera?, two-celled ; style, long and protruding. 

 Capsule bilocular, clastic, with two seeds fixed by little hooks. 



Justicia flavicoma, or rather, I should say, flavacoma — that is, 

 "Justicia with a yellow lock," or yellow tufted, — presents all the 

 above essential generic characters, with the specific peculiarity of 

 having the divisions of the calyx terminated by very long bristly 

 points. Its flowers are produced in a close terminal spike, the 

 whole of which is of a pale, yellowish, slightly green tint. This, 

 with the tufty form of the spike, gives the name to the species. 

 The spike is formed of a series of spikelets ; each pair is opposite, 

 the one to the other, and the pairs are in alternate order, at a right 

 angle with the pairs above and below. The leaves also are in pairs, 

 and in the same cross or rectangular order with themselves and 

 with the flowers that terminate them. These leaves, in the plant 

 at least now before me, assumed an appearance of similar interest. 

 As the flower-spike advanced, and became well developed, from 

 being flat and extending horizontally, they gradually curled in a 

 carious direction towards the stem, some even bending almost 

 spirally downward. They are large, very handsome, ovate-cordant . 



