escant, who first received it of a friend that
brought it out of Virginia, and hath imparted hereof, as of many other
things, both to me and others."

TOURNEFORT afterwards gave it the name of _Ephemerum_,
expressive of the short duration of its flowers, which LINNAEUS
changed to _Tradescantia_.

Though a native of Virginia, it bears the severity of our climate
uninjured, and being a beautiful, as well as hardy perennial, is found
in almost every garden.

Though each blossom lasts but a day, it has such a profusion in store,
that it is seldom found without flowers through the whole of the summer.
There are two varieties of it, the one with white the other with pale
purple flowers. The most usual way of propagating it is by parting its
roots in autumn to obtain varieties, we must sow its seeds.

[106]

IBERIS UMBELLATA. PURPLE CANDY-TUFT.

_Class and Order._

TETRADYNAMIA SILICULOSA.

_Generic Character._

_Corolla_ irregularis: _Petalis_ 2 exterioribus majoribus: _Silicula_
polysperma, emarginata.

_Specific Character and Synonyms._

IBERIS _umbellata_ herbacea, foliis lanceolatis, acuminatis,
inferioribus serratis; superioribus integerrimis. _Linn. Syst. Veg.
ed. 14._ _Murr. p. 589. Sp. Pl. p. 906._

THLASPI umbellatum creticum, iberidis folio. _Bauh. Pin. 106._

DRABA S. Arabis S. Thlaspi Candiae. _Dod. pempt. 713._

THLASPI creticum umbellatum flore albo et purpureo. Candy-Tufts, white
and purple. _Park. Parad. p. 390._

[Illustration: No 106]

The Candy-Tuft is one of those annuals which contribute generally to
enliven the borders of the flower-garden: its usual colour is a pale
purple, there is also a white variety of it, and another with deep but
very bright purple flowers, the most desirable of the three, but where a
garden is large enough to admit of it, all the varieties may be sown.

For want of due discrimination, as MILLER has before observed,
Nurserymen are apt to collect and mix with this species the seeds of
another, viz. the _amara_, and which persons not much skilled in plants
consider as the white variety; but a slight attention will discover it
to be a very different plant, having smaller and longer heads, differing
also in the shape of its leaves and seed vessels, too trifling a plant
indeed to appear in the flower-garden.

Purple Candy-Tuft is a native of the South of Europe, and flowers in
June and July: it should be sown in the spring, on the bor