Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/389

 PETTPJCH PEUCER 375 PETTRICH, Ferdinand, a German sculptor, born in Dresden in 1798, died in Rome, Feb. 14, 1872. He was a son of the sculptor Franz Pettrich (1770-1844), studied in Rome under Thorwaldsen, and in his youth spent some time in the United States and in Brazil. Among his best known works are " Belisarius," "Christ," and " Day and Night." PETUNIA, the botanical as well as the garden name for an ornamental plant, from petun, a name used by South American Indians for to- bacco, and applied to this related genus of so- lanacece. The plants are perennial herbs, be- coming woody at the base; the leaves alter- nate, simple, and as well as the young stems sticky with a viscid pubesence ; the flowers are axillary and solitary ; the lobes of the calyx spoon-shaped ; the corolla funnel-formed or sal- ver-shaped ; the spreading limb slightly five- lobed and somewhat unequal ; the five unequal stamens included within the tube; the ovary ripening into a two- celled, two-valved pod, with numerous minute seeds. The species first introduced was P. nyctaginiflora, brought from Brazil in 1823 ; it originally had a white flow- er with a very long tube, and was for a long time a popular plant ; in 1831 it was followed Petunia Garden hybrid, single. by P. molacea, a much more slender and weak- er plant, with rose- colored or violet purple flowers, having a shorter and broader tube than the other ; this also became a favorite garden plant. From these species there have been obtained, by hybridizing, crossing, and select- ing, a large number of varieties, so much su- perior to the originals that these are rarely seen in cultivation ; some of these varieties are so well fixed that they come true from seed, like the " Countess of Ellesmere," which has a deep rose-colored border and a white throat; the various blotched and striped varieties do not reproduce themselves so constantly, but give flowers with a great variety of markings, some of them of much beauty. Another set has the border of the flower fringed ; others have the flowers margined with a distinct color, in one case with a band of deep green. Besides the numerous single varieties, there are many double ones, some of which are sufficiently dis- tinct to have received florists' names ; they are Petunia Double-flowered. often so very double that the original form of the flower is lost in a confused mass of petals. Although the petunias are perennials, they flower so soon from the seed that they are treated as annuals. They are much used for planting in masses ; the stems spread for sev- eral feet, and the plants should not be crowd- ed ; as single specimens, they are best trained to a stake. The double kinds are unsuited for outdoor culture, their flowers being so heavy that they are broken by winds, and they decay when wet. Choice kinds, and especially the double ones, are propagated by cuttings. PEUCER, Kaspar, a German reformer, born in Bautzen, Jan. 6, 1525, died in Dessau, Sept. 25, 1602. He studied at Wittenberg, where in 1554 he became professor of mathematics and subsequently of medicine. He was a son- in-law and a zealous disciple of Melanchthon, after whose death in 1560 he became physician to Augustus, elector of Saxony, who regard- ed him as the principal exponent of Melanch- thon's views, and allowed him to select pro- fessors for the university of Wittenberg. But from 1574 to 1586 he was imprisoned on ac- count of his alleged Crypto-Calvinistic doc- trines, and subsequently he resided at Zerbst as physician to the reigning prince. He pub- lished several astronomical and other books, and an edition of Melanchthon's collected works (Wittenberg, 1562-'4). Among recent works