or Flower with the Coatzonte, the viper's head, is the Mexican name of a flower of incomparable beauty. It is composed of five petals or leaves, purple in the innermost part, white in the middle, the rest red but elegantly stained with yellow and white spots. The plant which bears it has leaves resembling those of the iris, but longer and larger; its trunk is small and slim: This flower was one of the most esteemed among the Mexicans. The Lincean academicians of Rome, who commented on and published the History of Hernandez in 1651, and saw the paintings of this flower, with its colours, executed in Mexico, conceived such an idea of its beauty, that they adopted it as the emblem of their very learned academy, denominating it Fior di Lince.