;88 Blue to Purple Flowers 



they are all entire or occasionally serrulate. The blue flow- 

 ers grow in an upright, loose panicle, the corolla is tubular- 

 funnelform and bilabiate within. The inflorescence is 

 slightly viscid-pubescent. 



ALPINE SPEEDWELL 



Veronica alpina var. unalaschensis. Figwort Family 



Stems: erect, slender, usually simple. Leaves: oblong, ovate, ses- 

 sile, mostly rounded at both ends, nearly entire. Flowers: in a short 

 narrow raceme; corolla rotate, its tube very short, deeply four-lobed, 

 the lower lobe the narrowest. 



These small azure-blue blossoms win the love of many a 

 traveller by reason of the fact that they are among the last 

 flowers he sees growing in the crevices of the great moraines 

 below the glaciers, and are freciuently the first ones to 

 meet his eyes as he comes off the snowy ice-fields after mak- 

 ing some arduous ascent. 



" The little speedwell's darling blue " 



renders it conspicuous, though its flowers are very small 

 indeed, being clustered together at the tops of the stems. 

 One marked peculiarity of the Speedwells is that the blos- 

 soms, which are cleft into four lobes, usually have the lower 

 segment narrower than the rest. The Dutch call this plant 

 *' Honour and Praise," because it was once upon a time 

 believed to contain valuable medicinal properties. Many 

 claimed it to be an excellent remedy for scrofula, and it was 

 the great Linnaeus himself who grouped it, together with 

 all its relatives, under the family name of ScrophiilariacecB, 

 or Figwort. 



The term Veronica suggests far more beautiful associ- 

 ations. Here the plant is named after Saint Veronica, who 

 in her turn was thus canonized because, according to an an- 



