Tradescantia Virginica. i* 



In England it blooms throughout the summer, eacli set of expanded 

 flowers as they perish being followed by a succession of new ones, 

 as ephemeral as themselves. 



This very elegant and singular plant is well known to many per- 

 sons, being often cultivated in gardens. It is greatly admired for 

 the singular brilliance and beauty of the flowers, to the rich purple 

 of which the brilliant golden-coloured anthers form a striking and 

 agreeable contrast. It is not generally known by those who cultivate 

 it, to be a native plant ; and I have known it purchased at a high price 

 from gardeners, near this city, while the shores of the Delaware a few 

 miles below its suburbs are bordered with it. The juice expressed 

 from the petals, or taken after florescence while they are in the 

 state of a dissolved pulpy mass, makes a brilliant stain or pigment, 

 exhibiting the peculiar brilliancy of the imperial-purple. 



The genus received its name from Ruppius and Linnrcus in honour of 

 the two John Tradescants, father and son. The former was the father 

 of natural history in England, and enjoyed the merit of having been 

 the first person who collected natural curiosities together in the form 

 of a Museum. The son visited Virginia, and before 1729 carried 

 into England, some new plants, among which was the one here 

 figured, the type of the genus. 



Mr. R. Brown has separated this, with some other plants, from 



