THROAT-WORT. 397 



plant as to have left us no account of its virtues, 

 and the flower we presume was found too beauti- 

 ful for the ugly hand of superstition to touch, so 

 that we can neither embellish our history of this 

 plant by the remarks of the poets or the won- 

 ders of the credulous. We shall therefore make 

 a present of this neglected plant to the artist who 

 may be disposed to paint a bower for Ariel, for 

 had it been known in this country in the time of 

 our great dramatic bard, we feel satisfied that his 

 fine imagination would have seated this aerial 

 being on a bank beneath the umbelliferous 

 branches of these azure flowers. 



The Blue Throat- wort has been so much neg- 

 lected by the British florists that it is rarely to 

 be found on the English parterre, although we 

 learn from Parkinson that it was introduced to 

 this country previous to the year 1640, and it is 

 a perennial plant sufficiently hardy to endure our 

 winters, particularly when planted in a dry soil. 

 It grows naturally in stony situations in Italy, 

 and in some shady places in the Levant. Mon- 

 sieur Desfontaines found it in Barbary, where it 

 grew in the rocky fissures of Mount Atlas. 



Miller observed, as long back as 1752, that 

 '' these plants thrive better on old walls, when 

 by accident they have arisen from seeds ; so their 

 seeds, when ripe, may be scattered on such walls 



