Home › Contents › Meadow-Beauty Deer-Grass

Meadow-Beauty Deer-Grass

Rhexia Virginica. Melastoma Family.

Stem.--Square; with wing-like angles. Leaves.--Opposite; narrowly oval. Flowers.--Purplish-pink; clustered. Calyx-tube.--Urn-shaped;four-cleft at the apex. Corolla.--Of four large, rounded petals. Stamens.--Eight;with long curved anthers. Pistil.--One.

It is always a pleasant surprise to happen upon a bright patch of these delicate deep-hued flowers along the marshes or in the sandy fields of midsummer. Their fragile beauty is of that order which causes it to seem natural that they should belong to a genus which is the sole northern representative of a tropical family. In parts of New England they grow in profusion, while in Arkansas the plant is said to be a great favorite with the deer, hence one of its common names. The flower has been likened to a scarlet evening primrose, and there is certainly a suggestion of the evening primrose in the four rounded, slightly heart-shaped petals. The protruding stamens, with their long yellow anthers, are conspicuous.

Of the plant in the late year Thoreau writes: " The scarlet leaves and stem of the rhexia, sometime out of flower, make almost as bright a patch in the meadows now as the flowers did. Its seed-vessels are perfect little cream-pitchers of graceful form."