202 A GUIDE TO FLORICULTURE. 



PORTULACA. 



(PURSLANE.) 



" Thou art a reveller of day, 



A fair rejoicing child of night; 

 Glad, while the sun beams o'er their play, 

 But drooping in the quiet night." 



Portulaca thellasoni, splendens, and gilesii, are very 

 hoary, half hardy, succulent plants, of late introduction. 

 They are a species of Purslane, known so well as a weed 

 in our flower garden, and so difficult to eradicate. These 

 beautiful plants are decidedly ornamental in the flower 

 garden, bearing flowers of a showy description, of different 

 colors. It has a procumbent stem, and diffused branches ; 

 leaves glabrous, alternate, and seldom opposite ; flowers 

 terminal in four, one expanding at a time, cup shaped, 

 showing their beautiful corollas only in bright sunshine ; 

 stamens inserted with the plate in the base of the calyx, 

 variable in number, all fruitful ; capsula one-celled ; seed 

 small, round, and numerous, of a lead color; when ripe, 

 the cap is thrown off, exposing the seed in a cup, and if 

 not gathered without delay, they will be scattered by the 

 wind. The flowers last but a day. As the plants increase 

 in size, the more numerous are the flowers, and they Avill 

 continue to expand until cut down by the frost. P. splcn- 

 dens is a rosy crimson, P. thellasoni orange scarlet, P. 

 gilesii a purple. 



The Portulaca or Purslane tribe are natives of the Cape 

 of Good Hope, New Holland, and South America, and 



