BLUE AND PURPLE 



SEA LUNGWORT. 



Mertensia maritima. Borage Family. 



Smooth, fleshy, spreading. Leaves. — Ovate or wedge-shaped, with a 

 bloom. Flaivers. — Blue ; occasionally white ; pink in bud ; clustered. 

 Calyx. — Five-parted. Corolla. — Bell-shaped; five-lobed. Sta7nens. — Five. 

 Pistil. — One, with a deeply four-parted ovary. 



On the sandy beaches along the coast from Massachusetts 

 northward, or perhaps on the pebbly rocks, the sea-lungwort 

 spreads its mats of pale, bluish-green leaves. These leaves blend 

 harmoniously with their background of gray sand, or of rounded, 

 wave-washed, bluish stones, forming oftentimes great beds of 

 foliage so symmetrical in their star-like or horseshoe-shaped out- 

 lines as to suggest the gardener's art rather than the wayward 

 whims of an undomesticated plant. The pink flower-buds are 

 noticeable late in June. They open into small, somewhat bell- 

 shaped blue or occasionally white blossoms. As the flowers open 

 one by one, the result is an attractive combination of delicate 

 pinks and blues, a combination which recalls the kinship of these 

 blossoms with the blue-weed and the forget-me-not. 



\ 



p "* BLUE-EYED GRASS. 



Sisyrinchiwn angustifoliiwi. Iris Family. 



Four to twelve inches high. Leaves. — Narrow and grass-like. Flowers. 

 — Blue or purple, with a yellow centre. Perianth. — Six-parted ; the divisions 

 bristle-pointed. Staviens. — Three, united. Pistil. — One, with three thread- 

 like stigmas. 



" For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat. 

 But it withereth the grass. 

 And the flower thereof falleth. 

 And the grace of the fashion of it perisheth." 



So reads the passage in the Epistle of St. James, which seems 

 so graphically to describe the brief life of this little flower that 

 we might almost believe the Apostle had had it in mind, were it 

 to be found in the East. 



28o 



