The Trumpet Flower. 95 



The Trumpet Flower. 



This beautiful flower is the type of a natural order of the 

 same name, of little known importance except as ornaments ; 

 they are mostly trees or twining shrubby plants, sending out a 

 great number of large and extremely showy flowers, celebrated 

 for their splendor and beauty. The Bignonia Radicans — 

 Trumpet Flower, belongs to the class Didynamia, order An- 

 giospermia. The generic name was given to it in honor of that 

 polite scholar, the Abbe Bignon, who was Librarian to Louis the 

 Fourteenth, of France. Its characters are— calyx cup-shaped, 

 and of a leathery consistence, with a marked five-toothed border ; 

 the corolla bell-formed, five-lobed, and swelled out on the under 

 side ; the capsule a kind of two-celled pod, which is long, and 

 has the seeds alternately attached ; the seeds very thinly and 

 delicately winged. Some of these are deciduous, with the leaves 

 falling off in the usual season ; others are evergreens. They are 

 mostly tropical flowers. Our species, the B. Radicans, is occa- 

 sionally found by the banks of rivers, among the bushes, but 

 more commonly cultivated ; in the southern states, of which it is 

 a native, it is very common. It has a creeping, long branched 

 stem, which occasioned the specific name, which often ascends 

 upwards of forty feet, adhering with great tenacity wherever it 

 attaches itself, doing this in a manner similar to the Ivy by send- 

 ing out fibres from the branches, at short intervals. The leaves, 

 which are ovate and toothed, are arranged in two rows on the 

 sides of a common stalk. The flowers, which are produced in 

 terminal clusters from branches of the same year, are of a yel- 

 lowish scarlet The corolla is trumpet-shaped, and three times 

 the length of the cup in which it is set. The flowers are noted 

 for generally containing the rudiments of a fifth stamen, which 

 is nearly developed. Another variety of this species has bright 

 scarlet flowers. It continues in flower during July and some 

 part of August. 



This is known in France as the Jasmin de Virginie, and in 

 England as the American Jasmine, though why such names 

 ahould be uiven to it T am at a loss tn determine. In the latter 



