434' Introductory Vie*w of the 



like the tail of a viper, and gradually lengthen and straighten 

 as the flowers blow. The calyx is of one leaf, usually five- 

 cleft ; the corolla of one petal, tubular in the lower part, the 

 upper cut into five segments. The stamens are concealed 

 within the tube, the mouth of which is frequently closed by 

 five little valves, which meet in the centre. In these charac- 

 ters, all the ten genera agree ; as they do, also, in having flowers 

 as delicate, as the herbage is coarse. One interesting plant, 

 the Forget-me-not (ikfyosotis palustris), has the bristles of its 

 leaves so fine, as scarcely to render them rough either to the 

 eye or to the touch. This plant grows about a foot high, with 

 oval leaves, of a bright green, somewhat shining and sessile ; 

 the flower is about a third of an inch in 

 diameter, of a delicate blue, with a yel- 

 low eye, formed by the valves before 

 mentioned ; it grows in marshes, and by 

 the sides of brooks and rivers. Other 

 species are frequently mistaken for this, 

 but they have smaller flowers, and the 

 eye is not so bright as in the true For- %!^//.,-^ ^^^ 



;get-me-not; which we speak of thus at 

 length, because it has been repeatedly 

 celebrated by poets of different countries, 

 is respected in Germany as the emblem 

 of affection, and is deserving of notice 

 from its own beauty, [fig, 195.) 



The second section of this order contains sixteen genera, 

 which, like those of the first, have their flowers monopetalous 

 and inferior, but have numerous seeds, enclosed in a covering 

 called a capsule (casket). Of this section are many of our fa- 

 vourite flowers: the convolvulus, which twines around its neigh- 

 bours, and frequently conceals them with its numerous stems 

 and heart-shaped leaves ; the primrose, which we all hail as 

 the pretty pale herald of the spring ; the periwinkle, which 

 crowds its fine evergreen leaves into clumps and tufts, flou- 

 rishing in shades too confined for most plants to thrive in ; the 

 water violet, a tall showy plant, which conceals its leaves under 

 the water, and erects its large flowering head two or three feet 

 above it ; the mullein, with its tall golden pyramids rising from 

 a bush of leaves, so thick, soft, and downy, as to serve the 

 Russian peasantry for socks in their rigorous winters; the 

 shepherd's weatherglass (so named from the warning it gives 

 of coming rain, by the closing of its corolla), which, with the 

 exception of the poppy, is the only scarlet flower indigenous 

 of Britain ; and the nightshade or bittersweet (Manum Dul- 

 camara), which wears a necklace of pearls, and produces one 



