ANTIRRHINUM SPECIOSUM. 

 GAMBEL'S SNAP-DRAGON. 



NATURAL ORDER, SCROPHULARIACE^. 



Antirrhinum speciosum, Gray. — Shrub, two to four feet high, somewhat pubescent, leafy 

 throughout: leaves oval or obiong, short-petioled, coriaceous : corolla " scarlet " or pink 

 red, hardly an inch long, thrice the length of the lanceolate sepals, and the tube thrice the 

 length of the narrow lip. (Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America. See also Brewer 

 and Watson's Flora of California.) 



T is only by rare good chance that we have been able to 

 illustrate this plant, which is one of the rarest as well as 

 of the most beautiful of the wild flowers of the United States. It 

 was first collected by Mr. William Gambel, in 1842, on the island 

 of Catalina, off the coast of California, and does not appear to 

 have been found again till 1875, when it was gathered on 

 another island off the same coast — Guadalupe — by Dr. Edward 

 Palmer ; and it was from seeds collected .by him that the plants 

 were raised in the gardens of the Arnold Arboretum of the 

 Bussey Institute, near Boston, from which our artist made the 

 drawing for this plate. 



The plants collected by Mr. Gambel were examined by Mr. 

 Nuttall, and described by him in the first volume of the "Journal 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia," under the 

 title of " Plantae Gambelianae," and this particular one believed to 

 constitute a new genus, and which he called Gainbelia ; but which 

 has since been decided by Dr. Gray not to be distinct from 

 Antirrhi7i2im, the well-known " Snap-dragon." Mr. Nuttall him- 

 self seems to have perceived the close relationship of the plant 

 to Ajitirrhinum. He says of it : 'A bush about three to four feet 

 high, full of bright scarlet flowers, and apparently an evergreen ; 



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