perches on the roots of furze and broom to suck their juices. A smaller sort lives on the roots of clover in like manner. These have capsules over their seeds. Other labiate plants have only four black seeds at the bottom of their calyx, quite uncovered. These are the white deadnettle, or archangel, so called because it shows its white flowers and black stamens about Michaelmas Day, the yellow dead-nettle or weasel-snout, the purple betony, the blue bugle, gray mint, and pale green wood-sage or germander. There is a beautiful deep blue sage not very common. Some people, when anything has gone into the eye, put in a seed of this sage to clear it out.

Most of the pot herbs belong to this tribe, as almost all its plants are wholesome and have a strong aromatic or spicy smell.

been handed down by tradition without books from many ages past.

Many fatal mistakes these poor old people must have made, and very thankful we may be that all the benefits of good and superior care have come amongst us, more easily obtained by the poorest now than then by the richest and greatest.

Among

The red is

Most of them come rather late in the summer. them are the red and the white eyebrights. not beautiful, it grows by roadsides, and is all dingy red with a pale pink blossom. The white is a bit of the embroidery of heaths and downs, a beautiful little white stitch in the pattern, with its clear white blossom prettily marked with yellow and purple.

Two plants somewhat alike in flower follow-the yellow cow-wheat and yellow rattle. It is said that yellow cow-wheat grows in woods only that have never been disturbed. It has dark smooth stems, long thin brownish leaves, and pale yellow flowers. The yellow rattle is in damp meadows and bogs. Its name is given because its ovary swells into a loose purse where the seeds rattle, but it is also called St. Peter's Wort, because to each flower there is a bract, curiously jagged like the comb of a cock.

Red rattle is of two kinds, one large and tall with pink flowers and a branching stem, the other a little pink bit, of the same embroidery as the eyebright.

Then there is figwort, a tall plant with a square hollow stem, and dingy dark red blossoms, far from beautiful.

And very curious is the broom rape, a brown thing with nothing flower-like about it but the four yellow anthers. The root is a succession of yellow scales, and

perches on the roots of furze and broom to suck their juices. A smaller sort lives on the roots of clover in like manner. These have capsules over their seeds. Other labiate plants have only four black seeds at the bottom of their calyx, quite uncovered. These are the white deadnettle, or archangel, so called because it shows its white flowers and black stamens about Michaelmas Day, the yellow dead-nettle or weasel-snout, the purple betony, the blue bugle, gray mint, and pale green wood-sage or germander. There is a beautiful deep blue sage not Some people, when anything has gone

very common.

into the eye, put in a seed of this sage to clear it out.

Most of the pot herbs belong to this tribe, as almost all its plants are wholesome and have a strong aromatic or spicy smell.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TWO STAMENED FLOWERS

NEARLY related to the lipped flowers are some others that have only half their number of stamens, and do not form a gaping flower. These are the pretty tribe of veronica, tiny plants, with a corolla always four-cleft, with two divisions equal, and of the other two one much larger than the other. Their English name is speedwell, and a very pretty name it is, for such bright cheerful wayside flowers as they are, peeping out with their blue eyes under the dusty hedge to smile on the tired traveller, and give him a cheerful greeting to speed him well on his way. The largest English kind, the germander speedwell, is of the most lovely azure that I know in any flower. The common speedwell, with a small pale flower, is a very troublesome weed in gardens; the water speedwell, or brooklime, with a fat fleshy stem, has a very pretty blue flower, and is no doubt known to watercress gatherers. The leaves of all, except the two water kinds, are cut like the edge of a saw, and covered with small white hairs. The capsule, or seed-vessel, is very prettily shaped, just like a heart with a rib in the middle, dividing it into two halves. There are a great many English sorts, and many more foreign ones, some of which are cultivated in gardens.

The Latin name, Veronica, means true image. I do not know why it was given to this little flower, but I like to think that it was thus intended to put us in mind that the true image of the greatness and goodness of God may be seen reflected in the marvellous structure of even so lowly a work as a little blue speedwell.

And growing in spikes with five-cleft corollas and downy stamens are the mullein tribe, very woolly plants in general, leaves and all covered with down, and the yellow blossoms in tall single spikes. The great white mullein has leaves nearly white with down, white furry stamens and red anthers; the black mullein is likewise yellow flowered, but the down on the filaments is purple ; the moth mullein is the prettiest of all, with yellow butterfly-like blossoms on a loose spike. It is often found in gardens; sometimes, though rarely, wild.

The bladderworts have yellow flowers with a long stem and two stamens. Their name comes from their leaves having little vessels scattered over them, which keep the plant buoyed up on the surface of the pool in which it grows till it has ripened its seed, when the plant sinks down. It is a cruel plant, for it makes itself a trap to little insects, also the young of fish, and feeds on them. Its cousin, the pretty purple butterwort, growing in bogs is more harmless.

After some tribes of which we know nothing, here follows the sweet-scented verbena, with those most fragrant of all leaves, which are sometimes called lemon. It comes from Buenos Ayres, and its splendid brethren, the creeping verbenas, purple, crimson, or dazzling scarlet, are, I believe, Mexican, and form the pride of gardens in early But the most curious history of all belongs to the little plain English verbena, a plant with insignificant

autumn.