Zinnia elegans, Jacq. Youth-and-Old. Figs. 4048-4050. Erect annual, a foot or more high, but varying from 3 in. to 3 ft.: lvs. ovate or elliptic, clasping, about 1 in. wide: rays becoming reflexed, originally purple or lilac, but now of nearly every color except blue and green; disk originally yellow or orange, but nearly or quite absent in the common double forms: fls. 2-5 in. across. July to Oct. Mex. Single forms are pictured in B.M. 527. P.M. 1:223, B.R. 1294 (the last two as Z. violacea). Double forms, F.S. 13:1394, R.H. 1861:251; 1864:331, G. 4:138. Pompons in Gn. 48, p. 464 (Lilliput); 30:270 (deceptive as to size), R.B. 20, p. 152.—The common species from which most of the garden zinnias are derived.