Volume 10 — PLATE DCXLIV. LOBELIA SPECULUM. Lobel’s Venus’s Looking-glass.

CLASS XIX. ORDER VI.

SYNGENESIA MONOGAMIA. Tips united. Flowers simple.

ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.

Calyx 5-fidus. Corolla 1-petala, irregularis. Capsula infera, 2-seu 3-locularis.

Cup 5-cleft. Blossom 1-petalled, irregular. Capsule beneath, 2-or 3-celled.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Lobelia foliis linearibus, integerrimis, superne acutis, ad basin dentatis, et ad apicem latioribus: corollis atro-purpureis, laciniis subequalibus: frutex pygmeus, ramulis numerosis tenuissimis patentibus.

Lobelia with linear leaves, entire, and pointed on the upper part of the plant, but toothed on the lower part, and broader at the end: Blossoms of a dark purple colour, with nearly equal segments. A dwarf shrub, with numerous slender spreading branches.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

Of this perfectly new species of Lobelia we do not find either figure or description in any author ancient or modern. The resemblance it bears to the Campanula Speculum, or Bell-flowered Venus’s Looking-glass, induced us to give it the same specific title. It is a delicate slender little annual, with an abundant succession of dark purple flowers, which appear to great advantage when the sun shines. In the regularity of its corolla it differs essentially from the genus Lobelia, and in a manuscript of the late Dr. Solander we find an intention to separate it by the generic title of Speculare.