34 
Flowers large, blue, placed in loofe panicles, upon rough peduncles 
turning downwards. Calyx divided into. five narrow. ovate rough 
permanent fegments. Corolla monopetalous, wheel-thaped: tube 
fhort: limb deeply cut into five {preading pointed divifions, which 
_ are longer than the calyx; faux or mouth of the tube clofed by five 
prominences, which are blunt, and notched at the.end. Filaments 
five, tapering, converging: anthers. oblong, approaching, and fixed 
‘to the middle and inner fide of the filaments. Germens four: ftyle 
filiform, longer than the ftamina, and furnithed with a fimple ftigma: 
the calyx fupplies the office of capfule, oentamimg the feeds, which 
are four, of an irregular roundifh fhape.. 
The Borage, although commonly found growing about rubbih, 
and in wafte grounds, is however not originally a native of this 
Ifland, but has now been long. enough naturalized here to be con- 
fidered as a Britith plant. Its flowers, which appear from June till 
September, are of a beautiful blue colour: hence this plant, in many 
gardens, is cultivated for ornament, as well as for its popular ufe as 
an ingredient in that grateful fummer-beverage, known by the name 
of Cool Tankard. 
This plant appears to be the bugloffum of the ancients ;* and its 
reputed medicinal charaéter feems alfo to correfpond moft exactly 
with that of our common buglofs, or anchufa officinalis L. The 
flowers of both have been termed cordial, and hence, formerly, 
much recommended in melancholia, and other affections of the 
nervous fyftem ;” and as thefe flowers were found to poflefs neither 
warmth, pungency, nor fragrance, their cordial efficacy has ,been 
 afcribed to a faline quality, which, by abating inordinate heat, was 
{aid to be peculiarly grateful and refrefhing. But though the herbaceous 
fubftance of Borage has been difcovered to contain a faline matter, 
there is no evidence of its exiftence in the flowers; fo that the ad- 
vantages fuppofed to be derived by a vinous infufion of thefe, like 
thofe of buglofs, can only be imputed to the menftruum. — 
- & The following lines therefore apply to this plant : 
Vinum potatum quo fit macerata buglofla, 
Merorem cerebri dicunt auferre periti. 
Fertur convivas decoétio reddere latos. Sede Salen Ce 216 
_» Hence the trite remark,  Borago, gaudia femper ago.” 
res The © 
