GAMOPETAL^ 119 



The habit is erect. On the stem, which is tall 

 but weak, the hairs are spreading. The lower leaves 

 are oblong to inversely ovate and blunt, the stem- 

 leaves oblong, acute. 



The flowers are small, blue, in a stalked raceme, 

 with a short bell-shaped calyx, with a few spreading 

 and numerous hooked hairs, cleft half-way, erect, 

 and closed in fruit. The corolla is concave, the 

 tube equal to the limb, the lobes entire, and the 

 flower-stalks are spreading, longer than the calyx. 

 The style is short. The nutlets are brown, bordered, 

 with a keel in fruit. 



The plant is 6-18 in. high. It flowers in June 

 onward till August or later. It is a herbaceous 

 perennial. 



Though the flowers are not so large as in the 

 Wood Forget-me-not they are bright blue, with 

 yellow spots at the base of the petals, and white 

 radiating bands converging to the centre. There is 

 a nectary at the base of the tube below the ovaries. 

 The yellow spots or processes serve as path-finders, 

 and protect the honey from the rain. Owing to 

 the anthers and stigma being at the same level the 

 flower is likely to be cross-pollinated, for an insect 

 touches the first with one side of its head, the 

 second with the other. There is a broad expansion 

 above the connective of the anther, bent outwards, 

 while the anther is curved inwards. By this arrange- 

 ment the insect is brushed with pollen as it with- 

 draws its proboscis, and not as it inserts it in the 



