COMMELYNA VIRGINICA. 

 COMMON DAY-FLOWER. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMMELYNACE/E. 



CoMMELYNA ViRGiNiCA, Liiinseus. — Stems usually decumbent; leaves lanceolate, acute, or 

 acuminate, contracted at base into sheathing membraneous petioles ; peduncles mostly two 

 within the bract, — one usually more slender; rather erect, longer and one-flowered, or 

 sterile, — the other commonly three-flowered; odd petal colorless, ovate lanceolate, about as 

 long as the lateral sepals. Plant nearly glabrous. Stem about a foot long (three or four 

 feet when supported in hedges) terete. Leaves two to four or five inches long, and half 

 an inch to an inch wide; sheathing petioles about half an inch long, striate with green 

 nerves, pubescent along the margins. Peduncles half an inch to an inch in length, in- 

 closed in the recurved conduplicaie bract, both before and after flowering. (Darlington's 

 Flora Cestrica, under tlie name of Commelyna angustifolia ? See also Gray's Manual 

 of the Botany of the Northern United States, Chapman's Flora of the Southern United 

 States, and Wood's Class- Book of Botany.') 



REEN, an English writer on gardening, in the early part 

 of the present century, tells us that " Commelinas have 

 but little beauty, so that, after the seeds come up, two or three of 

 each sort is all that are worth retaining ; " but it must be remem- 

 bered that in the days when this judgment was given few plants 

 except those with large or highly-colored flowers were thought 

 beaudful. The more nearly a Rose resembled a cabbage in form 

 and size, the more it was esteemed, — and possibly a large red 

 Pffiony would have been considered the acme of perfection. But 

 the science of beauty has progressed as well as other sciences, and 

 now few of its students would take our plate and study it in the 

 light of its teaching and not pronounce it beautiful. Of course it 

 is not gay ; but in the gracefulness of its lines, the harmony of its 

 proportions, the contrasts of its quantities, and the great variety 

 of its special features, there are few plants richer in the elements 

 of the beaudful. But to see it in its rare perfection, we must 



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