Morina longifolia Wall. ex DC.

Horticultural & Botanical History

Introduced to Britain in 1839 by Dr. Wallich.  [JD].  ‘A very handsome and a hardy plant, which, few perhaps, at the first aspect, would suppose to be a congener with the Fuller’s Teasel: yet such is the case.  It is entirely an Oriental Genus.  The original species, found in the Levant by Tournefort, is, in many respects, nearly allied to this, but the leaves are decidedly smaller, and the bracteas much narrower; and both are far more spiny, and the verticels of flowers are much more distant.  The lobes of the calyx are entire or bifid in both species, and I do not in any way see how the M. Wallichiana above quoted of Dr. Royle, is different from this.  That gentleman’s M. Coulteriana of the same work, seems to have the long coarse spines of M. Persica.  Our M. longifolia was discovered by Dr. Wallich in Gossarn Than.  Dr. Royle found it at Mussooree and on Choor, as well as on the mountains of Cashmere.  I also possess specimens from Lady Dalhousie, gathered on Whultoo, in the Himalayas, at an elevation of 10,673 feet above the level of the sea.  Our flowering-specimens were kindly sent from the Belfast Botanic Garden, by Mr. Ferguson, in August, 1843.’  [BM t.4092/1844].  Don.

History at Camden Park

Listed only in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [H.154/1850].

Notes