CIS'TUS ACUTIFO'LIUS. 
ACUTE-LEAVED ROCK-ROSE. 
Class. Order. 
POLYANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
CISTINEA5. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Cultivated 
S. Europe. 
18 inches. 
May, Sept. 
Perennial. 
in 1820. 
No. 449. 
The ancient Greeks had their plant, kistos; 
which name, it is believed, they derived from their 
own word, rise, a box; in allusion to the seed ves- 
sel of the plant. Hence comes the Latin cista, and 
the English chest, and almost obsolete kyste. 
Nearly all the species of Cistus are indigenous 
to the southern provinces of Europe; they are, con- 
sequently, somewhat more susceptible of injury, 
from severe frost, than could be wished; otherwise 
the abundance and the beauty of their flowers w ould 
be a passport for them into every garden. 
The common Gum Cistus is not unfrequently de- 
destroyed in exposed situations. The present spe- 
cies, however, we have never seen injured by the se- 
verity of our climate. It is a spreading dwarf shrub, 
not exceeding two feet high, although its slender 
branches, unpruned, will extend three feet wide. 
The entire plant bears a free succession of flowers 
through the whole of summer; and it may, very ap- 
p*opriately, ornament the mingled herbaceous de- 
partment, as well as the foreground of the shrub- 
bery. It may be increased, without difficulty, from 
layers, cuttings of the young shoots, or by seeds. 
113 Sweet’s Cistineae, 78. 
