HOUSTONIA C^RULEA. 



BLUETS. 



NATURAL ORDER, RUBIACEjE (Cinchonacf./E of Lindley). 



Houstonia c.ERULEA, Linnaeus. — Glabrous; stems erect, slender, sparingly branched from 

 the base, three to five inches high; leaves oblong-spatulate, one quarter to one third of 

 an inch long; peduncle filiform, erect ; corolla with tube much longer than its lobes, or 

 than those of the calyx ; flowers light blue, pale lilac, or nearly white, with a yellowish 

 eye. (Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States. See also Wood's 

 Glass-Book of Botany.) 



O plant is better known than this one in the districts 

 where it grows wild, as it is among the first to bloom 

 in spring, and attracts every one's attention. It was included 

 among the specimens collected in Virginia by Clayton in the 

 last century. The dried specimens which he sent to Gronovius 

 were for the most part described by this celebrated Dutch 

 naturalist, and it was he who named our plant in. honor of 

 Dr. William Houston (or Houstoun, as Aiton writes it), an 

 English physician who botanized extensively in Central Amer- 

 ica, and sent a large number of plants to the Physic Garden 

 at Chelsea, then under the charge of the well-known Miller. 

 Houston was also a contributor to the " Philosophical Transac- 

 tions," and seems generally to have been a very useful man 

 among the botanists of his time. He died young in 1733; but 

 his friends brought his botanical labors to the notice of Lin- 

 naeus, who in his earlier works acknowledges his indebtedness 

 to them. Linnaeus also adopted the name Houstonia from Gro- 

 novius, and this will explain why in some works the name is 

 credited to the latter, and in others to the former. It is not 



