ADDISONIA 45 
(Plate 23) 
COLUMNEA HIRTA 
Hairy Columnea 
Native of Costa Rica 
Family GESNERIACEAE GESNERIA Family 
Columnea hirta Kiotzsch & Hanst.; Hanst. Linnaea 34: 403. 1865. 
As in many other members of the genus, the stems of this plant, 
which are covered with long brown hairs tinged with purplish, 
creep upon tree-trunks, the tips hanging free. The hairy opposite 
leaves have petioles one quarter to three eighths of an inch long; 
the entire or obscurely toothed blades are narrowly elliptic, up to 
two inches long and a half inch wide, the apex obtuse, narrowed 
below into an acutish base. The flowers are single in the axils of 
the leaves, up to three inches long. The hairy calyx is three 
quarters of an inch long or a little less, its lobes lanceolate, acute 
and entire. The hairy corolla is vermilion, marked with orange, 
and is two-lipped; thet upper lip of four lobes, the two upper united 
into an erect arching hood to which the other two are somewhat 
attached at the base; the lower lip of one spreading lobe. The 
curved, gradually broadened upward. The stamens are a little 
shorter than the c ee the iapicnts glabrous. The style is 
curved and hairy Pee 
In 1900 C. seat sent living plants, itbout data indicating 
the exact locality, from Costa Rica to the New York Botanical 
Garden; the illustration was prepared from one of these which 
flowered in the conservatories of this institution in March, 1915. 
Herbarium specimens of the same species were collected in 1906 by 
W. R. Maxon at Finca Navarro, about seven miles to the southeast 
of Cartago, at an altitude of about 4,500 feet. 
This species belongs to the section Eucolumnea, and is closely 
related to Columnea gloriosa T. A. Sprague, figured at plate 7 of 
this volume. Its cultural requirements are the same, and it forms, 
as does that species, an admirable basket plant. 
GEORGE V. Nasu. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. Fig. 1.—Flowering stem. Fig. 2—Flower in bud. 
Fig. 3.—Pistil. 
