JAMES MACBRIDE 



1784-1817 



Macbridea pulchra ' — ELLIOTT 



Although Macbride's name figures in the indi- 

 ces of several volumes, yet, taking all the refer- 

 ences together, very scanty information can be 

 had concerning him. The fact that Dr. Stephen 

 Elliott dedicated to him the second volume of his 

 Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and 

 Georgia (1824) , and named the Macbridea pul- 



^ " This plant, nearly allied to Melittis, appears to differ in its calyx, 

 corolla, anthers and perhaps by its glands. I have therefore inserted 

 a minute description, that it may be compared with that genus. Its 

 habit is peculiar. Each whorl, when in flower, appears to be on the 

 summit of the stem. Two flowers generally shoot up at a time. These 

 are large for this order, rather exceeding an inch in length, and are 

 fancifully said to resemble two ears. Sometimes, though very rarely, 

 all the flowers of the whorl expand at the same time. While the first 

 whorl is flowering, the stem insensibly extends ; and, when the first 

 flowers have decayed, a second whorl appears on the summit of the 

 stem, ready to expand its two most forward buds. There are rarely 

 more than three or four whorls on each stem. I have named this 

 genus in commemoration of the late Dr. James Macbride, whose un- 

 timely death, Medicine and Natural History, and an admiring country 

 equally deplore. 



" It grows in the narrow swamps through the pine barrens in the 

 middle districts of Carolina, and is very abundant between Saltcatcher 

 bridge and Murphy's bridge on the Edisto river; it flowers from 

 August to September." (Elliott's Botany of S. Carolina and Georgia, 

 vol. ii, 1824.) 



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