Blue to Purple Flowers 263 



in the Campion are extremely fine and narrow and in the 

 Saxifrage are egg-shaped and thickish, with a strongly 

 marked keel and hairy margins. The stems of the Saxi- 

 frage are prostrate and very leafy, and the flowers are pur- 

 ple and grow almost flat upon the ground. 



It was John Keble who first drew our attention to the 

 fact that they are 



"The loveliest flowers that closest cling to earth." 



It was also evidently to some such prostrate alpine plant as 

 the Mountain Saxifrage that he referred when he wrote: 



" Bloom on then in your shade, contented bloom, 

 Sweet flowers, nor deem yourselves to all unknown. 

 Heaven knows you, by w^hose gales and dews ye thrive ; 

 They know, who one day for their altered doom 

 Shall thank you, taught by you to abase themselves and live." 



PURPLE CINQUEFOIL 



Potentilla polustris. Rose Family 



Stems: stout, ascending from a decumbent rooting perennial base. 

 Leaves: pinnate, oblong, serrate. Flowers: few in an open cyme. 

 Fruit: achenes glabrous, hairy receptacle becoming large and spongy. 



This Purple Cinque foil is a marsh plant with a decum- 

 bent root and a somewhat woody base. The leaves are five 

 to seven foliolate, the lower ones long-stalked and the upper 

 ones nearly sessile, the leaflets being oblong, toothed, blunt 

 at the apex and narrowed at the base. The showy flowers, 

 which grow in an open cyme, have a large calyx which is 

 dark purple within and much exceeds the small purple 

 petals. The numerous stamens are inserted on the pu- 

 bescent receptacle which becomes spongy in fruit. 



