Rhexia
(from rhexis, a rupture; applied to this genus for no obvious reason). ORD. Melastomaceae. A genus comprising about seven species of mostly hardy, pretty, erect herbs or sub-shrubs, natives of extra-tropical Eastern North America. Flowers variously coloured, solitary or cymose; calyx tube oblong, campanulate, or urceolate, the dilated limb of four triangular or subulate lobes; petals four, obovate; stamens eight. Leaves oblong, shortly petiolate, three-nerved, entire or bristly-serrulate. The species described below are all hardy herbs. They thrive best in a bed of peat, but are sometimes grown in pots of the same soil. Propagation may be readily effected by division. Some of the plants formerly placed under this genus are now included under Pleroma (which see).
R.ciliosa (hair-fringed).* fl. purple, 1in. to 1 1/2in. in diameter; cyme few-flowered, leafy. July and August. l. rarely as much as 1in. long, ovate, bristly on the upper surface, three-ribbed. Stem simple, 1ft. to 1 1/2ft. high, smooth, four-angled above. 1812. (S. B. F. G. 298.) R. mariana (Maryland). fl. purple, 1 1/2in. to 2in. wide, hairy externally; calyx mostly smooth. July to September. l. lanceolate, acute, short-petioled, bristly-serrate, three-ribbed. Stem 1ft. to 2ft. high, branched, terete or six-angled. 1759. Plant bristly. This species varies with narrower, often linear leaves, and smaller, whitish flowers. (L. B. C. 366; S. B. F. G. 41.)
R. virginica (Virginian).* Deer Grass; Meadow Beauty. fl. bright purple, cymose. July and August. l. ovate and ovate-lanceolate, barely acute, sessile, bristly-serrate, three to five-ribbed, the lowest rounded. Stem 6in. to 12in. high, four-angled, nearly simple. 1759. Plant bristly. (B. M. 968; Gn. ii. 294, 69; L. B. C. 840.)