EVOLVULUS PURPUREO-C.ERULEUS. 
(Purple blue -flowered Evolvulus.) 
1. Light variety. 2. Dark variety. 
Class. Order. 
PENTANDRIA. DIGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
CONVOLVULACEJ5. 
(Bind- weeds, Veg, King.) 
Generic Character.— Sepals five. Corolla cam- 
panulate, or funnel-shaped. Styles two, bifid. Ovary 
two-celled, four-seeded. Capsule two-celled. — Be 
Candolle. 
Specific Character. — Root perennial, not very 
stout, throwing out branches and fibres. Stem a foot- 
and-a-half high, quite woody below, and often, for 
more than half way up, branched from the very base ; 
main branches erect, stout below, gradually tapering 
upwards, and bearing several wiry, slender, patent, 
rigid, alternate branchlets, appresso-pubescent. Leaves 
hairy in the same way, small, especially the ultimate 
branches, all of them patent or reflexed, lanceolate, 
acute, entire, the smaller ones almost linear, the 
larger ones tapering below, but scarcely petiolate. 
Flowers terminal on the leafy branches, and pedicel- 
late ; or the pedicels are axillary, and generally brac- 
teated at the base. Calyx with a short tube, tapering 
below, with fine, rather spreading, small, lanceolate 
segments, downy with appressed hairs. Corolla rotate, 
rich ultramarine blue, with the centre white, and a 
purple ray diverging from that up the centre of each 
lobe, the margin five-lobed, the lobes rounded, crenate ; 
externally the corolla is silky. Stamens five ; filaments 
and anthers white. Ovary ovate, two-celled, four- 
seeded. Styles white, each branched above the middle 
and club-shaped at the apex.— Hooker, in Bot. Mag., 
v. 71, t. 4202. 
The genus Evolvulus, as at present known, consists of about thirty species, all 
very pretty, and of the easiest culture. They are chiefly natives of tropical 
countries, where they grow in almost all exposed situations much in the same 
manner as our Anagallis arvensis does with us. 
Eleven or twelve species are perennials, nine or ten are annuals, and six form 
small, and in most cases, procumbent semi-shrubs. 
The prevailing colour of the flowers is blue, in various shades and degrees of 
intensity ; but to this there are several exceptions, a few being white, and one or 
two yellow. 
Ten of the species have found their way through various collectors to this 
country, of which our present little gem, in two brilliant varieties, is by no means 
an inconspicuous addition. 
It is a native of Jamaica, where it was first discovered by Mr. Purdie, growing 
upon arid rocks in the neighbourhood of the sea, in the district of Manchester. 
The dark variety appears to be the natural one ; and, according to Sir W. Hooker, 
