RUDBECKIA FULGIDA. 
BRILLIANT CONE-FLOWER. 
NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT.E. 
RUDBECKIA FULGIDA, Aiton.—Stem hirsute with rigid hairs; branches slender, naked above; 
leaves strigous-pubescent, remotely dentate, radical petiolate, ovate, five-veined, cauline 
lance-oblong, tapering to the sessile, sub-clasping base; scales oblong, spreading, as long 
as the spreading rays; pales glabrous, linear oblong, obtuse. Stem from one to three feet 
high. Rays twelve to fourteen, scarcely longer than the leafy involucre, deep orange- 
yellow. (Wood’s Class-Book of Botany. See also Gray’s Manual of the Botany of the 
Northern (nited States, and Chapman’s flora of the Southern United States.) 
WHE genus Rudbeckia to which our present illustration 
belongs has received no common name from the com- 
mon people; but botanists have called it the “Cone-flower,” 
because the conical receptacle, or that which supports the centre 
of the flower, is more conical than that of the sun-flowers (/7/c/ian- 
thus) with which it was thought to have some relationship many 
years ago. It is proper however to remind the reader that names 
must be regarded as but names, and little more; for in naming 
a plant from some peculiarity we can never know when another 
one may be discovered having the same character though 
differing in something else. Indeed it often happens that a new 
plant, waiting for a name, has a known peculiarity much 
more strikingly developed than its elder sister. We cannot 
however alter names on this account, because such a change 
would be a greater evil than the misunderstandings from the 
application of the term. It has therefore become the habit to 
regard lightly the meaning of the name so far as identification 
of the plant is concerned. This is worth remembering when we 
think of “Cone-flower” in connection with Azddécckia, for there 
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