158 MEDEOLA VIRGINICA. INDIAN CUCUMBER. 



man she loved to triumph over her friends, and had fled from 

 her home and her fatherland for his sake, — 



" She saw new decked the nuptial bed, 

 And proud Creusa to the temple led, — 

 Saw her, in Jason's mercenary arms, 

 Deride her virtues and insult her charms." 



There is nothing in all this, however, to remind us of our 

 Medcola. But Ovid, in the course of his narrative, tells us, in 

 the eighth book of his " Metamorphoses," that, after Medea had 

 determined in her mind to follow the fortunes of Jason, " she 

 felt a sense of virtue and of shame, and the duties she owed to 

 her father presented themselves to her, and Cupid was about to 

 retire vanquished. Straight she repaired to the venerable altar 

 of Perseian Hecate, sheltered in a shady grove and the remote 

 recesses of a wood. And now she was resolved ; and the ardor 

 of her passion, by being checked, was considerably abated, when 

 she sees the son of ^son, and the extinguished flame was kin- 

 dled anew. Her cheeks were covered with blushes, and her 

 whole face was in a glow." It seems to us that Gronovius may 

 have had this passage in his mind when he named our plant 

 Mcdeola. In the retirement of the " shady groves and the 

 remote recesses of the woods" in which it grows, it is seen in 

 June in the verdancy of youthful innocence, as shown on our 

 l^latc ; but in September, its leaves, like Medea's cheeks, are 

 "covered with blushes, and her face is in a glow." Nothing is 

 more strikingly beautiful than the crimson and green of our 

 species at this season of the year, and to a poetically inclined 

 person, thoroughly read in the classics, it might well recall 

 Medea in the situation delineated by Ovid. 



Although the Mcdeola Vii^ginica is by no means showy, it is, 

 nevertheless, quite interesting to the collector and the student. 

 It looks like a lily at first sight; but we remember that the 

 lilies have only a single pistil, although this is often three-lobed 

 at the apex, while the Mcdeola has three distinct styles, which 



