From Blue to Purple 



of this species, having deserted the path of rectitude ages ago to 

 live by piracy, gradually lost the use of their leaves, upon which 

 virtuous plants depend as upon a part of their digestive apparatus ; 

 they grew smaller and smaller, shrivelled and dried, until now 

 that the one-tlowered broom-rape sucks its food, rendered already 

 digestible through another's assimilation, no leaves remain on its 

 brownish scapes. Disuse of any talent in the vegetable kingdom, 

 as in the spiritual, leads to inevitable loss : " Unto every one which 

 hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not, even that he hath 

 shall be taken away." 



Hairy Ruellia 



[Riiellia ciliosa) Acanthus family 



Flowers — Pale violet blue, showy, about 2 in. long, solitary or 

 clustered in the axils or at the end of stem. Calyx of s bris- 

 tle-shaped hairy segments; corolla with very slender tube ex- 

 panding above in s nearly equal obtuse lobes; stamens 4; i 

 pistil with recurved style. Stem: Hairy, especially above, 

 erect, i to 2^2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, narrowed 

 at apex, entire, covered with soft white hairs. 



Pcrferred Habitat — Dry soil. 



Flowering Season — June — September. 



Distribution — New Jersey southward to the Gulf and westward to 

 Michigan and Nebraska. 



Many charming ruellias from the tropics adorn hothouses 

 and window gardens in winter; but so far north as the New Jer- 

 sey pine barrens, and westward where killing frosts occur, this 

 perennial proves to be perfectly hardy. In addition to its showy 

 blossoms, which so successfully invite insects to transfer their pol- 

 len, thereby counteracting the bad effects of close in-breeding, the 

 plant bears inconspicuous cleistogamous or blind ones also. 

 These look like arrested buds that never open ; but, being fertilized 

 with their own pollen, ripen abundant seed nevertheless. 



One frequently finds holes bitten in these flowers, as in so 

 many others long of tube or spur. Bumblebees, among the most 

 intelligent and mischievous of insects, are apt to be the chief of- 

 fenders; but wasps are guilty too, and the female carpenter bee, 

 which ordinarily slits holes to extract nectar, has been detected 

 in the act of removing circular pieces of the corolla from this ruel- 

 lia with which to plug up a thimble-shaped tube in some decayed 

 tree. Here she deposits an egg on top of a layer of baby food, 

 consisting of a paste of pollen and nectar, and seals up the nursery 

 with another bit of leaf or flower, repeating the process until the 

 long tunnel is filled with eggs and food for larvse. Then she dies, 

 leaving her entire race apparently extinct, and living only in em- 



61 



