284 Blue to Purple Flowers 



base on a line with the stamens. The nutlets are dull and 

 with obtuse angles, they are wrinkled at maturity. This 

 plant grows in moist places. 



DRAGON HEAD 



Dracocephaliim parviiioriini. Mint Family 



Stems: erect, leafy. Leaves: ovate-lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed. 

 Flowers: in whorls, crowded in a terminal spike. 



The leafy erect stems of this plant are crowned with dense 

 whorled spikes of small purple-blue flowers, the upper lip of 

 the small slender corolla is arched and notched, the lower 

 one being three-cleft, with the large middle lobe again two- 

 cleft or notched at the end. The leaves are long-shaped and 

 very sharply toothed, the lower ones being petioled and the 

 upper sessile. 



HEART OF THE EARTH 



Prunella vulgaris. Mint Family 



Stems: numerous, slender, erect or procumbent, usually simple. 

 Leaves: thin, ovate or oblong, obtuse, entire or crenate. Flowers: in 

 dense, bracted, terminal and axillary spikes ; calyx cylindraceous, with 

 hirsute teeth; corolla-tube inflated, bilabiate, the upper lip entire, 

 arched, the lower lip spreading, three-lobed. 



The dense purple spikes of the Prunella are very common 

 beside alpine streams and in the grassy meadows. This 

 plant, which was called Prunella by Linnseus, is more sig- 

 nificantly named Brunella, because it is supposed to contain 

 a remedy for die Brdiine, or the quinsy, and hence some 

 ancient German botanist originally called it Brnnellen. 



It is not an attractive flower, for its elongated spikes, cov- 

 ered with dark reddish bracts, have usually only a few scat- 

 tered blossoms on them, and even these are insignificant. 



