300 FLORA HISTORICA. 



Germany, and Sweden, and has been found in 

 this country in the neighbourhood of Mitcham, 

 in Surry, near Histon, in Cambridgeshire, and 

 Bredon-hill, in Worcestershire. It is more fre- 

 quent in Devonshire than in any other part of 

 England ; but we have occasionally found it grow- 

 ing on the corn lands of the south downs near 

 Brighton, in Sussex. 



The petals of the Blue-flowered Pimpernel 

 have a spot of carmine colour at the base of 

 each, in the same manner as the scarlet kind is 

 marked by purple. Old writers, after the ancient 

 authors, distinguish these two kinds of Anagallis 

 by calling the blue-flowered the female, and the 

 red the male Imperial. 



Pliny remarks that sheep avoid the Blue Pim- 

 pernel, but eat the scarlet kind, which he con- 

 siders as extraordinary, since the difference of 

 the plants can only be perceived by the colour 

 of the flowers. He adds that when a sheep has 

 by accident eaten of the Blue Pimpernel, the 

 animal goes by instinct to a plant which he calls 

 Ferus oculus. Schreber says that sheep eat Pim- 

 pernel readily ; by the experiments in Amcen. 

 acad., it appears, that kine and goats feed on it, 

 but that sheep refuse it. If Pliny is correct in 

 his observation, both these opposite statements 

 may be also accurate, since neither of them men- 



