TRADESCANTIA LONGIFOLIA II. sp.
Perennial by a short rootstock and slender roots which are dm. or rarely 2 dm. long ; rather slender, glandular pilose, dull green. Stems solitary, erect or assurgent, 4-5 dm. tall, strict, simple or sparingly branched above, densely glandular ; leaves linear or nearly so, chiefly basal or confined to the lower part of the stern, 2-4 dm. long, even the lower ones surpassing or almost equalling the stem, gradually narrowed from near the base, flat, densely glandular-pilose like the stem ; sheaths 2-2.5 cm. long, ciliate with long hairs, imbricated below ; involucre of two small leaf-like bracts, or one often almost wanting ; pedicels stoutish, 1.5-2 cm. long ; flowers deep blue, 2.5-3 cm. broad ; sepals linear lanceolate or linear-oblong, 1 cm. long, obtuse, I to 2 times shorter than the pedicels ; filaments at length as long as the sepals, spirally twisted ; capsule oblong, 8-9 mm. long, glandular-pilose ;
seeds oblong or ovoid, more or less flattened, gray, conspicuously marked with irregular transverse ridges.
Sandy soil in pine barrens, Florida: Curtiss, 2996 and 468o; Nash, 1574.
Many Thadescantias possess more or less glandular pubescence, but in this Floridian species, we find the whole plant covered with a short glandular pubescence which extends even to the petals. Its affinities are with Tradcscantia hirsztiicallbs, from which it differs primarily in the pubescence and the broader and elon gated leaves which are chiefly confined to the base of the stem which they either surpass or nearly equal. The sepals are narrow and conspicuously elongated.