DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF FLOWERS. 271 



LXJN ARIA.— Honesty. 



[From luna, the moon, in allusion to the broad, round, silvery pods or silicles.] 



Lunaria biennis. — Honesty. — Is an old-fashioned plant, 

 flowering the second year from seed, and then dying. It 

 produces large purple flowers, in May and June, that are 

 succeeded by broad elliptical pods, which, when dry, are 

 rather ornamental. 



LUPINUS.-LupiN. 



[Said to be derived from lupus, a wolf, because this plant devours, as it were, 

 all the fertility of the soil.] 



The species are border-flowers, in much esteem for their 

 velvet-like leaves and fine large flowers. They are all 

 vigorous growing plants some annual, but mostly peren- 

 nials. 



Lupinus per^nnis. — Wild Lupin, — Is a well-known spe- 

 cies, indigenous all over the country ; found, frequently, 

 in large masses, from a yard to two rods in circumference, 

 occupying the very poorest sandy or gravelly arid soil ; in 

 bloom about the first of June. It is very difiicult, or 

 even impossible, to transplant, with success, this fine per- 

 ennial. The only sure way to propagate it is by seed, 

 which should be gathered before it is entirely ripe, as it is 

 scattered, as soon as mature, by the sudden bursting of 

 the pod, by which the seed is thrown to a considerable 

 distance. Nor will it succeed on rich ground ; but when- 

 ever the seeds are to be sown, the soil should, in the first 

 place, be removed, or a greater part of it, from a circle 

 the diameter of which is three or four feet, and the hole be 

 filled up with a poor, gravelly or sandy soil, and the seed 

 sown in the center. 



The flowers are found, in the wild state, of various 

 colors and shades, from pure white (which is rare) through 



