120 FAMILIAR FLOWERS OP FIELD AND GARDEN. 



Portulaca. Portulaca comes to us from South 



Poftuiaca America. Its brilliant flowers, in 



gian ijoia. gj^^^pg ylosely resembling a wild rose, 

 are found snuggled close to the ground in nearly 

 every country garden. The foliage is narrow like 

 fir-needles, but of a thick and pulpy nature ; the 

 stems are also thick and are ruddy in color. There is 

 a great variety of colors among the flowers — crimson, 

 pure pink, scarlet-pink, magenta, scarlet, pale and deep 

 yellow, buff, and orange. The double variety, in my 

 estimation, is not as beautiful as the 

 single. A troublesome weed of the 

 garden resembling portulaca, but 

 having a broader and blunt leaf, is 

 called P. oleracea, purslane, or pus- 

 ley. Charles Dudley "Warner, in My 

 Summer in a Garden, has drawn 

 particular attention to tliis omnipres- 

 ent weed ; it is a great nuisance to 

 the amateur gardener, but he can 

 console liimself with the thought that it was handed 

 down to him from his ancestors; they brought it 

 with them from the old country, and it once sup- 

 plied the table with a much-relished dish of greens 

 which has since been displaced by spinach and young 

 beet-tops. Portulaca is an annual which flowers all 

 summer. 



Leaves of Pusley. 



