BIGNQNIA RADICALS. ASH-LEAVED TRUMPET FLOWER. 
Class XIV. DIDYNAMIA.— Order II. AN GIOSPERMI A. 
Natural Order, BIGNONIACE^E. THE TRUMPET-FLOWER TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) part of the corolla removed, showing the position of the stamens with the barren filament; ( b ) pistil. 
Bignonia ; so named by Tournefort in compliment to Abb£ Bignon, librarian to Louis XIV. 
Perianth one-leafed, erect, cup-form, five-cleft. Monopetalous, campanulate. Tube very small, the 
length of the calyx, Throat very long, ventricose beneath, oblong-campanulate. Border five-parted, the 
two upper divisions reflex, lower patulous. Filaments four, subulate, shorter than the corolla ; two longer 
than the other two. Anthers reflex, oblong, as it were doubled. Germ, oblong. Style filiform, situation 
and form of the stamens. Stigma capitate. Silique two-celled, two-valved ; partition membranaceous, 
parallel, thickened at the sutures. Seeds very many, imbricate, compressed ; membrane winged on both 
sides. Leaves pinnate ; leaflets gashed. Stem with rooting joints. Branches long and pliant, putting out 
fibres at their joints for the purpose of attaching themselves to whatever they are growing upon. Leaves 
opposite at every joint. Leaflets in four pairs, terminating by an odd one; they are serrate, and end in a 
long sharp point. The flowers are produced at the end of the shoots of the same year, in large bunches ; 
they have long swelling tubes shaped somewhat like a trumpet, whence this plant has the appellation of 
Trumpet-flower. The corolla is orange. 
This climbing shrub possesses peculiar attractions. The splendour of the large and numerous panicles 
of flowers of various shades of pink and orange with which it is adorned during the month of August, is 
sufficient to call forth the admiration of the lover of the flower-garden. The luxuriant growth of its branches 
will be found serviceable for the purpose of obscuring offensive walls, particularly if intermixed with climbing 
evergreens; the flowers of many of which, being much less showy, are nearly lost at the height to which 
these plants are at times required to be trained. The splendid flowers of the B. radicans will therefore 
enhance the value of such collections of climbers ; and the flowers of each shrub will add materially to the 
delicacy, beauty, and brilliancy of each other. 
This shrub is a native of North America, and was introduced in 1640. It is hardy, and may be pro- 
pagated by layers or by pieces of the root : these should be put in about the beginning of April. The roots 
should be kept in pots for one year, when they may be planted out. A light sandy earth will be found 
most congenial to the growth of this shrub, which should be planted against a south or south-east wall. 
May, says a popular Author, or the time of the year analogous to it, in different countries, is more or less 
a holiday in all parts of the civilized world, and has been such from time immemorial. Nothing but the most 
artificial state of life can extinguish, or suspend it : it is always ready to return with the love of nature. Hence 
the vernal holidays of the Greeks and Romans, their songs of the swallow, and vigils of the Goddess of love; 
hence the Beltein of the Celtic nations, and the descent of the god Krishna upon the plains of India, where 
he sported. 
In no place in the world, perhaps, but in England (which is a reason why so great and beautiful 
a country should get rid of the disgrace,) is the remnant of the May-holiday reduced to so melancholy a bur- 
lesque as our soot and tinsel. 
In Tuscany, where we have lived, it has still its guitar and its song ; and its jokes are on pleasant sub- 
jects, not painful ones. We remember being awakened on May-day morning, at the village of Mariano near 
Fiesole, by a noise of instruments, and merry voices, in the court of the house in which we lodged, — a house 
with a farm and vine-yard attached to it, where the cultivator, or small farmer, lived in a smaller detached 
dwelling, and accounted to the proprietor for half the produce, — a common arrangement in that part of the 
world. The air which was played and sang was a sort of merry chaunt, as old perhaps as the time of Lo- 
renzo de Medicis ; the words to it were addressed to the occupiers of the mansion, and the neighbours, or 
any body who happened to shew their face; and they turned upon an imaginary connexion between the 
qualities of the persons mentioned and the capabilities of the season. We got up, and looked out of window; 
and there, in the beautiful Italian morning, under a blue sky, amidst grass and bushes, and the white out- 
houses of the farm, stood a group of rustic guitar-players, joking good humouredly upon every one who 
appeared, and welcomed as good humouredly by the person joked upon. The verses were in homely cou- 
plets; and the burden or leading idea of every couplet was the same. A respectable old Jewish gentleman. 
