[Plate 72.] 



THE AZURE PENTSTEMON. 



(PENTSTEMON AZURE US.) 



A Hardy Herbaceous Plant, from California, belonging to the Order of Linariads. 



Specific Character. 



THE AZURE PENTSTEMON". — Quite smooth, and somewhat glaucous. Leaves opposite, the lowermost oblong, 

 stalked, the upper ones sessile, somewhat cordate, lanceolate, acute, occasionally split at the point, or incised 

 at the edge. Eacemes rod-like. Flower-stalks opposite, one-flowered, furnished with bracts. Sterile filament 

 smooth. 



Pentstemon azureus : Bentham, Plantce Hartwegianw, p. 327, No. 1879. Journal of Horticultural Society, vol, v., p. 144. 



Our Volume i., p. 56. 



THE remarks on page 56 of our first volume have prepared our readers for a knowledge 

 of this handsome perennial, which proves to deserve more attention at the hand of 

 the gardener than was anticipated. It forms a fine tuft of slightly glaucous branches 

 and leaves, producing in the autumnal months rods of bright azure blue flowers about 

 two feet high. 



Mr. Bentham compares it with P. lieterophjllas, than which it is a very much finer 

 species, readily distinguished by its blue flowers, growing singly and almost without stalks, 

 in the axils of the upper leaves. It is also to be remarked that the foliage, although usually 

 perfectly entire, exhibits every now and then a tendency to acquire divisions such as are 



