78 HELIANTHEMUM CAROLINIANUM. CAROLINA SUN ROCK-ROSE. 



portion of our country, of which Longfellow in "Evangeline" 

 says : 



" Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit trees ; 

 Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens 

 Beading above, and resting its dome on the walls of the forest." 



The poet is referring to Louisiana, where our plant is found 

 as well as in the Carolinas where Walter first found it, and 

 which suggested to him the name of Cishts Caroliniamis — the 

 Carolina Rock-rose. For our specimen we are indebted to Mrs. 

 Lungrren, of Volusia, Florida, where in the month of March it is 

 one of the numerous early flowers of that flowery land, and 

 clothes many a dreary sand-hill with its golden beauty. 



In the past our plant would have been a Cislus, an old name 

 employed by Pliny, the Roman writer of the beginning of the 

 Christian era, to designate a " branching plant with leaves like 

 thyme," and which may very well have been some of the Euro- 

 pean species. They abound in the south of Europe, extending 

 nearly to Africa, and may perhaps embrace a hundred species. 

 Most of these species are crimson, brown, or white, and were 

 known as "Rock-roses," from their usual place of growth, and 

 from the general form and color of the flowers giving the im- 

 pression of miniature roses. One of these species had yellow 

 flowers, like small suns, and was called from this fact Cislus Hdi- 

 anthcmwn. Jussieu divided the genus. He found some having 

 five to ten valves or divisions in the capsule, and these he re- 

 garded as the true Cistits, while others had uniformly but three 

 (see our Fig. 2), and these he kept under the old name oi Heli- 

 anthcmum. This note from history is useful in connection with 

 the meaning of the name in its application to our plant. Many 

 of our modern text-books tell us "it is derived from two Greek 

 words, hclios the sun, and antJios flower; because the flower 

 only opens when the sun shines," an explanation which would as 

 readily apply to those known under Cistus as under our Hcli- 

 anthcimun. Our text-books also give the name " Rock-roses " to 

 the Helianthcinum as well as to the genus from which it was 



