Up: transcriber's preface
Previous: Malva
Next: Napaea
Involucellum nullen vel 1–3-phyllum. Petala cuneiformia, truncata, apice sæpius fimbriato-erosa. Carpella rectiuscula, rostro brevi crasso demum cavo intus processu dorsali ligulæformi aucta. Embryo arcuatus. Cætera fere Malvæ. — Radix sæpissime napiformis vel tuberorsa.
CALLIRRHOË, Nutt. in Jour. Acad. Philad. 2. p.
181. Gray, Pl. Fendl. in Mem. Amer. Acad. (n. ser.) 4. p. 16.
NUTTALLIA Bart. Fl. N. Amer. 2. t. 62. Hook. Exot. Fl.
t. 171, 172, & Jour. Bot. 1. p. 196 (non Torr. & Gr.)
MALVÆ Sp., Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Am. 1. p. 225
CALYX naked, or involucellate with from one to three herbaceous bracts, five-cleft, persistent; the segments triangular or lanceolate, acumimate, three-nerved, valvate in æstivation. PETALS 5, hypogynous, convolute in æstivation, broadly cuneiform, truncate, the dilated extremity commonly erose-denticulate or fimbriate, their claws adnate to the base of the stamineal column. STAMENS indefinite, monadelphous in a simple short column, the dilated base of which is adnate to the claws of the petals, hypogynous; FILAMENTS separately becoming free in several series from te summit of the column: ANTHERS reniform or oblong, one-celled, opening by a longitudinal line around the convex side. POLLEN globose, hispid. OVARIES 10–20, united in a circle around a central receptacle: STYLES as many as the ovaries, filiform, united below, their distinct portion stigmatose (minutely hispid) for the whole length of the inner face. OVULE solitary in each carpel, amphitropous, peritropous-ascending, the micropyle pointing to the base of the cell.
FRUIT formed of a depressed ring of more or less beaked crustaceous and indehiscent or somewhat two-valved carpels, which cohere by plane faces. but at length fall away separately from the conspicuous central receptacle; the more or less incurved beak hollow at maturity, its cavity separated from that of the body of the carpel by an internal tounge-shaped dorsal process! SEED reniform, smooth. EMBRYO arcuate-incurved in or partly round the soft or mucilaginous albumen: COTYLEDONS broad and foliaceous, cordate, infolded together: RADICLE centripetal-inferior, or rarely (in C. alcæoides and C. pedata) more or less ascending by the partial resupination of the seed.
HERB (of North America) with mostly simple stems from a large and thickened fusiform or napiform perennial (rarely annual) root. Radical leaves rounded or cordate, lobed or incised, the cauline usually palmately or pedately cleft or parted. Stipules free. Peduncles axillary or somewhat umbellate-clustered, commonly elongated, oftern articulated near the apex. Flowers showy, red-purple or flesh-colored.
ETYMOLOGY. Καλλιρροη, the daughter of the river Achelous, &c. Perhaps Mr. Nuttall drew the name from Καλλοσ, beautiful, and ροια or ροα, whence Rhœas, the Corn Poppy, which C. Papaver so much in the appearance of the flowers as to suggest the specific name to Cavanilles, who informs us that the French colonists of Louisiana called the plant by the same appellation, viz. Coquelicot.
PROPERTIES. Nearly all species are ornamental on account of the large and finely colored corolla. C. Papaver is prized as a showy perennial in the gardens. C. involucrata, C. digitata, and C. pedata are not less beautiful. The fleshy roots of all the species are farinaceous; those of C. macrorhiza are used for food by the Indians.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. A genus of seven [2] known species, belonging to the warmer temperate portion of the United States, west of the Alleghanies and east of the Rocky Mountains. Nearly all of them are found in Texas and the plains of the Arkansas and Platte; one species (C. triangulata) extending northest to Illinois and Wisconsin; another (C. Papaver) southeast to Florida.
NOTE: The history of this genus is briefly given in Plantæ Fendlerianæ, above cited. Mr. Nuttall established it on two exinvolucellata species, viz. C. digitata and C. pedata, and indicated it as differing from Sida in habit rather than in technical character. Soon afterwards Dr. W.P.C. Barton substituted the name of Nuttallia, and figured the former species are Nuttallias digitata. Drawing and specimens having been sent to Dr. Hooker, at Glasgow, he figured the two species, viz. N. digitata and N. pedata, in the Exotic Flora. He soon identified the Malva Papaver, Cav., as a third species of the genus, notwithstanding its involucre of from one to three bracts, which, however, are frequently remote from the calyx or wanting; and, in the Journal of Botany, 1. p. 196, shortly afterwards added to the genus another involucellate species, the Malva triangulata of Leavenworth; — at the same time suggesting that these two should be restored to Malva. and two exinvolucellate species be referred to Sida. As the radicle proved to be inferior in all of them, they were all referred to Malva in the Flora of North America, along with a third involucrate species (the Nuttallia involucrata, Nutt.); and a remarkable Rosaceous genus was dedicated to Mr. Nuttall in a subsequent portion of that work. Recently, in revising this group, I had occasion to point out the characters which distinguish then genus from Malva, viz. the more or less beaked fruit, with an internal process across the base of the beak, and the truncate petals; and I accordingly restored the original name of Callirrhoëa, defining the species anew, and introducing two more exinvolucellate species, namely, C. macrorhiza (Sida macrorhiza, James), which had been taken as a variety of C. pedata, and C. alcæoides (the little known Sida alcæoides, Michx.), which, like C. pedata, has the ripe seed so depressed by the internal process that the radicle becomes ascending, although the seed is not at all resupinate. Since the earlier sheets of the Plantæ Fendlerianæ were printed, C. digitata has also flowered with us, from Texan seeds, and complete indigenous specimens with ripe fruit have been examined, enabling me now to point out the true difference between this species and C. pedata, and to correct some errors in the synonymyb.
a Calliroe, Link, Handb.=a section of Amaryllis (Belladonna, Sweet.), and is, I believe, of later date. The prior use of the name in Zoölogy will not be held to forbid its restoration in Botany
b C. PEDATA: radice gracili annua (an semper?); foliis membranaceis 5–7 fidis, segmentis cuneatis dilatatis laciniato-lobatis incisisve, floralibus 3–5-partitis segmentatis lanceolatis sæpe incisis; stipulis ovatis; pedunculis in racemum foliosum elongatum digestis; involucello nullo; petalis eroso-crenulatis; carpellis lævibus dorso trilobato-cristatis, rostro maximo minus incurvo. — Gray, Pl. Fendl. p. 17. Nuttallia pedata, Nutt. in Hook. Exot. 3. t. 172. Malva pedata, Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Am 1, p. 226, excl. syn. “N. digitata, Bart.” — Some indigenous specimens are three feet high; and in cultivation it attains the height of four or five feet, leafy to the top, and producing a long succession of handsome flowers from the axils of the leaves. The petals are deep cherry-red, with a tinge of purple, decidedly smaller than those of C. digitata, being less that an inch in length. The root it not thickened in any of my indigenous specimens, nor does it show a tendency to become so in the living plant. I suppose the plant is truly an annual or a biennial.
C. DIGITATA: subglauca; radice crassa sæpe napiformi: caule simplici (vix sesquipedali); foliis radicalibus primariis rotundata-cordatis crenato-lobatis vel 5-fidis, sequentibus caulinisque pedato-5–7-partitis, segmentis linearibus plerumque elongatis integerrimis seu 2–3-fidis, floralibus parvis sæpe integerrimis; stipulis lanceolatis; pedunculis subcorymbosis; involucello nullo; petalis apice fimbriatis; carpellis reticulato-rugulosis dorso vix cristatis, rostro breviusculo inflexo. — Nutt. in Jour. Acad. Philad. 2. p. 181; Gray, Pl. Fendl. l.c. Nuttallia digitata, Bart. Fl. N. Am. 2. t. 62; Hook. Exot. Fl. 3. t. 171. Malva digitata, Torr. & Gray, Fl. l. c. Nuttallia cordata, Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1938, ex icone. — The figure in the Botanical Register (which I had wrongly referred to as M. triangulata) certainly belongs to the present species, as the naked calyx, the fimbriate edge of the petals and their (pink) color show. But the radical leaves figured are only the primary ones, and are all undivided. The corolla in this species is less red and considerably larger than that of C. pedata, but small than in C. Papaver: the petals are from an inch to an inch and a quarter in length, and their whole summit is finely and beautifully fringed. In the fruit, as in other respects, the species is intermediate between C. pedata and C. Papaver, but is abundantly distinct from either. Since these characters have been verified, there is no room to doubt that the Nuttallia digitata figure by Barton truly represents this species, and not the C. pedata, as was assumed in the Flora of N. America. Although it sometimes flowers the first season from the seed, yet the root early becomes napiform, or thickened fusiform, and is perennial.
[1] The currently accepted spelling for the genus is
Callirhoe; though Callirrhoe is the spelling used for the nymph
and for a Jovian moon.
[2] There are currently 9 species accepted in the genus.
HTML and footnotes © 2003 Stewart R. Hinsley