Home › M › Moltkia (Named after Count Gadske)

Moltkia (Named after Count Gadske)

(named after Count Gadske Moltke, who died in 1818; founder of a Museum of Natural History at Copenhagen). ORD. Boragineae. A genus comprising six or seven species of elegant, hardy or half-hardy, strigose-canescent, herbaceous perennials, natives of South Europe and Eastern and Western Asia. Flowers blue or yellow, in terminal, secund bracteate spikes; corolla tubular, funnel-shaped, with a naked throat. Leaves alternate, narrow. The two species here described are probably the only ones yet introduced. For culture, see Onosma.

M. caerulea (blue). fl. bluish-purple; spikes 4in. to 6in. long; bracts lanceolate. April. l. oblong-lanceolate, acute, rather silky. Stem shrubby at the base, ascending. h. 1ft. Asia Minor, & C., 1829. M.Petraea (rock).* fl. at first pinkish-purple, deep violet-blue when open, in simple, forked or branched, short, revolute, terminal, dense cymes; corolla glabrous; calyx hoary. June. l. lin. to 11/2in. long, one to two lines broad, narrow-linear or linear-oblong. Stem woody below. H. 6in. to 8in. Dalmatia, &c., 1845. This species thrives best in a cool greenhouse. (B.M. 5942, under name of Lithospermum petraeum; B. R. 1843, 26, as Echium petraeum.)