PENTSTEMON BEARD-TONGUE.
_Pentstemon pubescens._
“Flowers spring up and die ungathered.”
THE wild Pentstemon is a slender, elegant branching plant, not unlike in
outline to the fox-glove. The flowers are delicately shaded from white
to pale azure-blue, sometimes varying to deeper blue. The corolla is an
inflated slender tube, somewhat flattened on the upper side, with a
rigid line passing from the base of the tube to the upper lip. There are
also two bearded lines within. The lower lip is three-cleft and slightly
projecting beyond the two-lobed upper lip; the stamens are five, but one
is sterile and thickly beset with fine white hairs (or bearded). The
name is derived from a Greek word signifying _five_. The root leaves are
broadly lanceolate and coarsely toothed; the upper or stem-leaves
narrower, and nearly clasping the stem. The flowers grow on long
branching stalks in a loose panicle.
The plant is perennial, from one to two feet in height; it seems
addicted to dry gravelly soil on river banks and dry pastures. The
Beard-tongue would be well worthy of cultivation; though less showy than
the garden varieties, it is not less beautiful and keeps in bloom a long
time, from July to September; it might be mixed with the red flowering
plants of the garden to great advantage.
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[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._]
1 NYMPHÆA ODORATA
(Sweet scented Water Lily)
2 NUPHAR ADVENA
(Yellow Pond-Lily)
(Spatter dock)
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