150 CHELONE OBLIQUA. 
Chelone obliqua. It doubtless exists in most of the older establishments of this 
country, at least in such as yet preserve their antiquated aspect and system of 
management ; but being a plant that even the cottager could cultivate with the 
greatest facility, and furthermore distinguished for the compactness of its growth, 
and the profusion as well as showiness of its flowers, all who allow perennial herba- 
ceous species a place in their gardens should be careful to secure several specimens. 
And since this suggestion applies to every person who devotes the smallest spot of 
ground to flowers, the recommendation is of course addressed to the whole of that 
extensive class. 
Equal to any species of Pentstemon in the handsomeness of its blossoms, — for 
what is lacking in colour, compared with some of the magnificent members of that 
genus, is made up in size, — there is none of the difficulty in its management which 
is almost universally attendant on theirs, nor is there the slightest degree of the 
same liability to destruction by the common conditions of British winters. Its 
culture is, in fact, of the easiest possible description . All thoroughly hardy herba- 
ceous plants, and this among the number, merely need parting and moving each 
year, or once in two years, and if they are planted in a loamy soil, they cannot fail 
to succeed. C. obliqua may, however, be suffered to form a mass, at the roots, of 
a foot or more in diameter, because it is when a clump of this kind is all flowering 
together that the highest effect is produced. 
Mr. Miller, an excellent horticulturist of the middle of the last century, intro- 
duced this plant in the year 1752. It is found by the sides of rivulets on the high 
mountains of Virginia and Carolina, in North America, and is supposed to prefer a 
damp shaded situation. The last of these positions is not at all essential, and it 
will thrive quite as well in an open border. A multiplication is obtained by the 
division of the plant at the roots. 
From the nursery of Messrs. Young, Epsom, where a great number of beautiful 
herbaceous plants are admirably grown, our present figure was prepared in 
the month of September, 1839. It blooms during the principal part of the 
autumn, growing to the height of from eighteen inches to two feet, and each stem 
developing a terminal spike of flowers similar to that now exhibited. 
From the imaginary resemblance in the figure of the corolla to that of the shell 
of a tortoise, Tournefort originally named the genus. It is closely related to 
Pentstemon. 
