PENTANDRIA— MONOGYNIA. Myosotis. 253 



Scorpiurus n. 590. Hall. Hist. t\ 1 . 261 . 



In dry sandy fields and open places, common. 



Annual. June — Auf!;ust. 



Root fibrous, generally simple at the crown, always annual. Stem 

 from 3 to 8 inches high, erect, branched and spreading from the 

 base, roundish, slender, leafy, clothed with partly spreading 

 hairs. Leaves covered with similar hairs ; the lowermost stalked, 

 obovate j the rest sessile, more or less obtuse. Clusters many- 

 flowered ; at first small, dense, and revolute j but very much 

 elongated, and quite erect, when in fruit ; almost always distin- 

 guished, as Mr. Borrer first remarked, by having one distant 

 drooping flower-stalk situated in the bosom of the uppermost 

 leaf. Sometimes there are more solitary flowers, or a small 

 cluster or two, so situated. Partial stalks, when in fruit, spread- 

 ing, covered with close hairs, and much longer than the calyx ; 

 of which the tube is bell-shaped, clothed with spreading or de- 

 flexed, hooked, bristly hairs ; the segments lanceolate, as long 

 as the tube, their hairs erect. Corolla with a white tube, as 

 long as the limb, which is small, bright blue, scarcely reddish in 

 the bud 5 its valves sunk in the tube. Seeds ovate, obtuse, keeled, 

 of a shining brown. The smaller Jlowers, and annual root, di- 

 stinguish this species from all the foregoing. The wooden cuts 

 of old authors do not precisely represent it, the artists probably 

 having M. sylvatica and intermedia in view at the same time, 

 though they distinguished M. palustris. 



7. M. versicolor. Yellow and blue Scorpion-grass. 

 Seeds smooth. Leaves hairy. Clusters on long, naked 



stalks. Calyx longer than the partial stalks ; hairs of its 



tube hooked. Root fibrous. 

 M. versicolor. " Vers. Sijn. v. 1. 156." Lehm» Asperif. 93. Engl. 



Bot. V. 36. 2558. t. 480./. 1 . Comp. 33. Hook. Scot. 67. 

 M. arvensis jS. Roth Germ. v. 2. p. I. 223. Willd. Sp. PL v. 1 . 747. 

 M. scorpioides /3. H. Br. 212. Huds. 78. Relh. 75. 

 M. scorpioides y. Linn. Sp. PL 189. 

 M. scorpioides collina. Ehrh. Herb. 51. Beitr. v. 5. 177. 

 M. scorpioides hirta minor. Rail Syn. 229. 

 Echium Scorpioides minus, flosculis luteis. Bauh. Prodr. 119. 



Pin. 254. 

 Anchusa lutea. Cav. Ic. v. 1. 50. t. 69. f. 1 ; all the synonyms wrong. 

 Alsine myosotis av9ojw.yyX<v(j;. Belleval Ic. Ined. t. 1. 

 Small Scorpion-grass. Pet. H. Brit. ^ 29./. 1 1 . 

 In dry sandy fields and pastures, or on walls, as well as in moist 



meadows. 

 Annual. April — June. 

 Root fibrous, simple at the crown, dark chesnut-coloured. Stem 



as in the last, but rather more erect, usually 3 or 4 inches high, 



but in wet grassy places from 6 to 12, as Mr. Borrer and Dr. 



