GOLDFUSSIA ISOPHYLLA.— EQUAL LEAVED GOLDFUSSIA. 
Class XIV. DIDYNAMIA.— Order II. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order, ACANTHACE.E. THE JUSTICIA TRIBE. 
Character of the Genus Goldfussia. Calyx five-parted, nearly equal. Corolla funnel-shaped; 
limb five-cleft, blunt, equal. Stamina included, didynamous, the smaller ones often very short and reflexed. 
Anthers nodding, the cells oblique, ovate, membranous, upon a glandular hooked connective. Stigma simple, 
subulate, crenate on one side. Capsule six-angled, bivalvular, the valves separable from the dissepiment, 
the cells having in the bottom two discoid seeds, subtended by retinacula. 
Description of the Species, Goldfussia Isophylla. Stem erect, slender, much branched, angled, glabrous. 
Leaves opposite, equal, narrow, lanceolate, much attenuated at both extremities, distantly serrulate, entire 
towards the base, glabrous, dark green above, paler below. Flowers in terminal or axillary lax capitula, 
each subtended by a lanceolate glabrous bract. Calyx deeply but unequally four-five-cleft, segments unequal, 
lanceolate, blunt, whitish, but brown and pubescent on the sides and edges. Corolla lilac, veined, angled, 
funnel-shaped, curved towards the upper sides, undulate, sparingly glanduloso-pubescent, lower part of the 
tube white, hairy on its upper side within ; limb four-lobed, lobes blunt, or marginate, the lower frequently 
bifid, the number of lobes of the calyx varying with those of the corolla. Stamens included, didynamous, 
without the*rudiment of a fifth ; filaments hairy ; anthers suborbicular, attached by their backs, lobes bursting 
along the face. Pistil longer than the stamens, extending nearly to the division of the limb ; stigma linear, 
narrow, extending a little way along the back of the style ; style glabrous, swelling towards its extremity, 
and terminating in a cone ; germen obovato-lanceolate, compressed, ciliated at its apex, opposite the edges 
of the dissepiment. Ovules few. 
Popular and Geographical notice. The genus Goldfussia was established by Nees von Esenbeck, in 
his account of the East Indian Acanthaceee, in Wallich’s Plantse Asiatic® Rariores, and included fourteen 
species of Ruellia, in the Herbarium of the East India Company. In habit, this species exceedingly re- 
sembles that longer known one, Goldfussia anisophylla, but is at once distinguished by the uniformity of 
its opposite leaves : and it is a smaller plant. They are both natives of Sylhet. 
Introduction ; Where grown ; Culture. I have only seen this species in cultivation in the nursery 
garden of Mr. Cunningham, Comely Bank, Edinburgh ; where it thrives well, and flowers freely during a 
great part of the year, in the stove, without requiring any particular attention. 
“Not long ago,” says Harvey, in his reflections on a Flower Garden, “ these curious productions of 
the spring, were coarse and mis-shapen roots. Had we opened the earth, and beheld them, in their seed, 
how uncouth and comtemptible had their appearance been ! — but now, they are the boast of nature ; the 
delight of the sons of men ; finished patterns for enamelling and embroidery ; outshining even the happiest 
strokes of the pencil. They are taught to bloom, but with a very inferior lustre, in the richest tapestries, 
and most magnificent silks. Art never attempts to equal their incomparable elegancies ; but places all her 
merit in copying after these delicate originals. Even those, who glitter in silver, or whose clothing is of 
wrought gold ; are desirous to borrow additional ornaments, from a sprig of jessamine, or a little assem- 
blage of pinks. 
What a fine idea may we form, from hence, of the resurrection of the just, and the state of their re- 
animated bodies ! As the roots even of our choicest flowers, when deposited in the ground, are rude and 
ungraceful ; but, when they spring up into blooming life, are most elegant and splendid : so, the flesh of a 
saint, when committed to the dust, alas ! what is it? Aheap of corruption; a mass of putrefying clay. 
But, when it obeys the great archangel’s call, and starts into a new existence ; what an astonishing change 
ensues ! What a most ennobling improvement takes place ! — That which was sown in weakness, is raised 
in all the vivacity of power. That which was sown in deformity, is raised in the bloom of celestial beauty. 
Exalted, refined, and glorified it will shine, £ as the brightness of the firmament,’ when it darts the inimi- 
table blue, through the fleeces — the snowy fleeces of some cleaving cloud. 
There is an inspiration, observes the authorof the “Flora Domestica,”in the works of nature which gives 
a more than usual power even to talents of a common order, when treating of them ; and although we take 
greater delight in the rose, the violet, or the lily, we also love to pluck from the hedge-side the hawthorn and 
the ragged-robin. Wordsworth very naturally describes the inclination we have to gather wild flowers: — ■ 
“ We paused, one now, I Either to be divided from the place 
And now the other, to point out, perchance | Cn which it grew, or to be left alone 
To pluck, some flower or water-weed, too fair j To its own beauty.” 
