190 WILD FLOWERS OF 



true Forget-rne-Not are many-flowered, their peduncles 

 as well as the pedicels and calyces thickly covered 

 with close appressed white bristles ; the flowers are of 

 an enamelled azure, though pale purple before expan- 

 sion, with white ribs at the base, where five brilliant 

 yellow nectaries form a golden star, within which the 

 stamens and the pistil are carefully sheltered. A 

 nearly allied plant to this, which grows only in 

 swamps or quaking bogs, with creeping stolons (M. 

 repens of Don), was once impressed upon our recol- 

 lection for perceiving it blooming in the middle of a 

 bog on the bleak deceptive sides of Plinlimmon, we at 

 once made a dash at it ; but received so cool a recep- 

 tion from the coy beauty, though our knees had bent 

 before her dripping shrine, that we retired with a 

 very inadequate specimen of the favours she had at 

 first appeared so disposed to offer. 



The deep wood has now a train of bright adorn- 

 ments that are more beauteous still within its dark 

 recesses, than if exposed to the full glare of day. On 

 its verge half hidden within the over hanging foliage 

 of the limestone steep, the simulating Bee Orchis 

 (Ophrys apifera), hangs its flowers like insects sus- 

 pended in air, exserting the wondrous tube that im- 

 bibes the odoriferous nectar ; amidst the shade of the 

 thicket the Butterfly Orchis (O. chlorantlia) , lifts its 

 scented spike of greenish-white flowers with their long 

 horn-like lips ; and in the thickest and darkest part 

 of the grove a brown stem may be faintly seen, as if 

 scorched and withered, which on closer inspection is 

 seen to bear pale sulphur flowers, and is the curious 

 Listera nidus-avis, or Bird's-nest Orchis. Here, too, 

 but less in the shadow, rise up numerous plants of 



