258 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
Description of The upper portion of a stem of Centranthus 
Plate 124. macrosiphon with leaves and flowers. Figs. 1 and 2 
are enlarged flowers; 3, a section; 4, the fruit and calyx, natural 
size and enlarged ; 5, a seedling. 
SCABIOUS 
Natural Order Dipsacex. Genus Scabiosa 
ScaBiosa (Latin, scabies, the itch ; formerly used as a medicine in skin 
diseases). A genus consisting of about eighty species of perennial herbs 
with entire or pinnately-lobed leaves, and small tubular flowers massed 
in half-round or flattened heads with an involucre of leafy bracts. The 
individual flowers are invested by a tubular involucel with four or eight 
angles, or four or five lobes. The calyx is bristly, the limb cup-shaped, 
with four to sixteen rigid bristles or teeth. Corolla oblique or two- 
lipped, honeyed, with four or five lobes. Stamens four; stigma notched. 
They are natives of Europe, Africa, and Western Asia. 
There are three British species of Scabious, but these 
are rarely, if ever, seen in gardens, though it is probable 
they were, or at least that one of them was, cultivated prior to the intro- 
duction of Scabiosa stellata from Spain in 1596, and S. gramuntia in 
1597. 8. atropurpurea, the Sweet Seabious, also known as the Mournful 
Widow, was introduced from Southern Europe in 1629, and is a popular 
garden plant with us to-day. In Portugal, as well as in Brazil, the 
flowers of this Species are much used in the construction of funeral 
Wreaths. §, graminifolia was introduced from Switzerland in 1689, 
but 8. caucasica was not known in our gardens until 1803, when it was 
brought from the Caucasus; and S. webbiana, another garden plant, 
came from Phrygia in 1818, Several others are of more recent 
introduction still, but the above are those of chief horticultural mem 
and all hardy, 
Prineipal Species, SCABIOSA ATROPURPUREA (dark purple). ra 
branched, 2 to 3 feet. Radical leaves lyre-shaped, toothet 
stem-leaves Pinnately lobed, the lobes toothed or cut. F lower-heals 
°ep erimson ; July to September. There are numerous varieties,“ 
flowers white, flesh, rosy, or purple, and a flore pleno with all the 
_- large like the outer series in the typical flower of the case 
ere 1s also a dwarf form (var. nana), and a var. folis awres wl 
yellow leaves, : 
S. caucasica (Caucasian). Stems 1 foot high. Radical leaves 
