1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
21 
The Hyssop-Leaved Ouphea. 
Probably no greeuhouse plant is better known 
and more popular than Cuphea platycenira, 
which, under the odd but somewhat descrip- 
tive names of " Cigar-plant " and " Fire-cracker 
border, and are not much in external appear- 
ance, like those of the Cigar-plant ; their color 
is lilac, and they are produced in the greatest 
profusion. The plant flowers continuously, 
and an exceedingly neat object it is ; its gen- 
eral expression is exceedingly neat and modest, 
and no matter how full of flowers it may be, it 
secure it. This Canna is in Paxton's Botanical 
Dictionary as having been introduced into 
England in 1788, but it is recorded as having 
red flowers, hence we infer that they have got 
hold of the wrong plant. Our species is from 
two to four feet high, with a stout, very leafy 
stem ; the leaves are ovate-lanceolate, pointed, 
HTSsop-LEAVED QWTmx.—{Ouphea 
plant," is often cultivated in the window, as a 
center to hanging baskets, and as a bedding 
plant. Its small, tubular, scarlet flowers, tip- 
ped with violet and white, suggestive of its 
common names, are not more valued than the 
neat, clean foliage. We here figure a new 
species, which promises in some respects to 
rival the old favorite — Hyssop-leaved Cuphea, 
(Cuphea hyssop/ folia,) which is also a native of 
Mexico. In speaking of the plant as new, we 
mean new to commerce, if not to cultivation, 
as the recent English and French lists do not 
include it. It, like many other of our culti- 
vated plants, was discovered by Humboldt and 
Bonpland, and was described over half a cen- 
tury ago, but we had never seen it, until we re- 
ceived a specimen from Hoopes Brother & 
Thomas, of Westchester, Pa. The plant, which 
had evidently been growing in the open ground, 
was potted for the greenhouse, where it has 
kept on growing and blooming as if it had 
never been disturbed. This plant much re- 
sembles the well known one, being of a very 
branching habit, and forming a dense bushy 
shrub, which may be cut into any desirable 
shape. The engraving shows a small branch 
of the natural size. The leaves, not quite half 
an inch long, are of a dark bright green ; the 
flowers have a short tube with a spreading 
hyssopifoUa.) 
is not obtrusively showy. It would be worth 
growing for its foliage alone, as it is of a deli- 
cate character to work up admirably in bou- 
quets ; and in bedding arrangements it would 
be most useful in contrast with more showy 
plants. It is propagated with the same ease as 
the old species, every little snip making a 
plant. We believe it is the intention of the 
firm who sent it to us to soon offer it for sale. 
Our Native Canna. 
The Cannas, now so deservedly popular in 
garden ornamentation, are all exotics from the 
East and West Indies, and South America, 
the most prized among them being the results 
of hybridizing and crossing among the species. 
The best known of these, Canna Indiea, is so 
thoroughly naturalized in Lotiisiana and other 
parts of the South, that many have supposed it 
to be indigenous ; we have but one native Can- 
na, C. flaccidn, which is found from South 
Carolina to Florida in swamps near the coast. 
It is often much easier to get a Japanese or 
Himalayan plant than it is one from a remote 
part of our own country, and our attempts to 
get this Canna were an illustration of this fact, 
and it was ouly last spring that we were able to 
rather erect, and of a pleasing glaucous green. 
The spike is few-flowered, but the flowers are 
much larger than in any exotic species, or va- 
riety, that we have seen, and of a very different 
appearance. The three outer divisions of the 
corolla are long, narrow, and bent downwards, 
the three inner ones very broad, thin, and 
wavy; the delicate texture of these divisions 
and their peculiar waved or crimped margins 
give a pleasing appearance to tlie flower, and 
one that is exceedingly difficult to reproduce 
in an engraving; the flowers are three to four 
inches long, and of the most delicate lemon- 
yellow, open at evening, lasting in perfection 
ouly about a day. Though the finest named 
varieties, with their tall stems and brilliant 
flowers, were growing in all their stateliness 
near at hand, this little native of the Florida 
swamps gave us more pleasure last summer than 
all the rest. Like some other Cannas, this has 
a long, comparatively thin root-stock, and on 
this account will require more care in keeping 
during winter than those which fonn a large 
thick tuber; this, if dried off like the othei-s, 
would be quite likely to shrivel up and lose its 
vitality, a trouble which may be obviated by 
keeping the roots in a dry cellar covered with 
dry sand, or they may be potted and kept in 
a cool greeuhouse at rest duriug the winter. 
