Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/564

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558 LOBEIRA LOBELIA mation of a new army. After the battle of Leipsic he was a prisoner in Hungary until the first restoration. He joined Napoleon on his return from Elba, was appointed commander of the first military division, headed the sixth corps at Waterloo, and fell into the hands of the English. He was not permitted to return to France till 1818, and for the ten following years he lived in retirement. He was elected to the chamber of deputies in 1828, took an active part in the revolution of 18UO, and was made a peer, commander-in-chief of the na- tional guard in December, and in 1831 marshal of France. He suppressed the republican in- surrections in 1832 and 1834. LOBEIRA, or Lovcira, Vasco de, a Portuguese writer, born in Oporto about 1270, died in 1325, according to Bouterwek, or at Elvas in 1403, according to Ticknor. In 1386, accord- ing to the latter, he was knighted by John I., on the field of battle at Aljubarotta. He is however almost solely known as author of the celebrated romance " Amadis de Gaul." South- ey, who translated it, has apparently proved that it was original with Lobeira. The Portu- guese manuscript existed till 1753, and it prob- ably perished in the earthquake and fire which destroyed the Aveiro palace at Lisbon. LOBEL, or De PObel, Matthias, a Flemish bota- nist, born in Lille in 1538, died near London in 1616. He emigrated to England, superintended for some years a garden of medicinal plants at Hackney, and ultimately became physician and botanist to James I. The most important of his works are Stirpium Adversaria Nova (writ- ten in conjunction with Pena, London, 1570), and Plantarum Historia (Antwerp, 1576), a systematic illustrated work. LOBELIA, a genus of plants named by Lin- naBus in honor of Matthias Lobel; it is the type of the order Lobeliacece, which includes some half dozen other genera besides this. The lobelias are herbs, with milky juice and alternate leaves ; the flowers are axillary or in bracted racemes ; the calyx tube is adherent to the pod, with a five-cleft limb ; corolla mono- petalous, split down its whole length, some- what two-lipped, the upper lip of two erect lobes, the lower lip spreading and three-cleft ; stamens united into a tube by their anthers, and sometimes by their filaments; pod two- celled, many-seeded, opening at the top. This structure with slight modifications runs through the order, which is closely related to the cam- panulacece, scarcely differing from it except in its irregular flowers ; the structure of the flow- ers is much like that in composite, from which they differ in the many-seeded capsule. Acrid and narcotic qualities pervade the whole order, some members of which are eminently poison- ous. The genus Lobelia is a large one, and is especially well represented in tropical and sub- tropical countries ; about 15 species are found in the United States east of the Mississippi river. The most conspicuous of our lobelias, and one of the most noticeable of all our wild flowers, is L. cardinal**, the cardinal flower, which is common in wet places from Canada to Florida ; in favorable situations this throws up numerous leafy stems 3 or 4 ft. high, the Lobelia cardinalia. upper part of which is flower-bearing, form- ing a one-sided raceme a foot or more long of large flowers, which are almost unrivalled in the intensity of their scarlet color. Specimens have been found in which the flowers are rose- colored or even white. The cardinal flower is perennial by offsets; i. e., the stems die after flowering ; but during the season offshoots are formed which continue the clump if not the individual plant. So showy a plant early at- tracted attention, and it was introduced into Lobelia inflata. English gardens in 1629, where it has ever since been appreciated as one of the finest perennials ; it is rarely seen in our gardens, but its cultivation presents no difficulties if the