VERBE'NA PULCHEL'LA. 
PRETTY VERBENA. 
Order. 
ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order. 
VERBENACE^. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Introduced 
Buenos Ayres 
15 inches. 
June, Sep. 
Perennial. 
in 1827. 
No. 277. 
The word Verbena has been handed down to us 
from the ancients, and is generally supposed to have 
been applied by them to some aromatic herbs, em- 
ployed in their religious ceremonies. Pliny, how- 
ever, tells us, in definite terms, that it was the name 
of a mere tuft of grass, which was ceremoniously 
plucked up with the turf, from the Castle Hill, or 
Citadel of Rome, and used in public sacrifices ; and 
also carried in the train of the Roman heralds, when 
they were dispatched on an embassy to an enemy. 
The officer, bearing the Verbena, was called Verbe- 
narius. — Pliny’s Nat. Hist. b. 22. Pulchella, from 
the Latin, pretty, as translated above. 
This species of Verbena is a pretty addition to the 
parterre; and its neatly cut foliage, and divaricated 
habit of growth, adapt it to artificial rock work. 
The most certain mode of propagating and pre- 
serving it, is to strike cuttings of its young shoots, 
about midsummer. These should be kept in pots, 
during winter, with protection from severe frost; and 
in spring they may be turned out, with the balls of 
earth perfect about their roots, and planted in the 
open ground, in a warm situation for flowering. 
70 Sweet’s FI. Gar. 295. 
Class. 
DIDYNAMIA. 
