WATER FIGWORT 115 



be thus dispersed, or they may fall into the water in the first [ilacc and 

 ije dispersed b\' water. 



Marsh Forget-me-not is a peat-loxing i)lant requiring a peaty soil, 

 or a clay-loving' plant growing" on clay soil. 



Two fungi, Pcroiiospora niyosotidis and EutyIo)iia ;i-ro//sso!i/, intest 

 the plant, and a Hetero[)odous insect, JMoiiaiithia htiiiiuh, and a 

 Homopterous insect, Libiiniia ficberi, feed on it. 



Myosolis, Dioscorides, is from the dreek 7iiits, mouse, and oiis, ear, 

 because the lea\"es resemble a mouse's ear; and the second Latin name 

 refers to the scorpioid type of c\me. 



Marsh Forget-me-not is also known Ii\' the names l)ird's-e\'e, Catter- 

 pillars, Forget-me-not, Snake Cirass, Lo\e-me, Mouse-ear Scorpion- 

 grass. The origin of the name is so described by Shiraz: " It was in 

 the golden morning of the early world when an angel sat weeping out- 

 side the closed gates of Eden. He had fallen from his high estate 

 through loving a daughter of Earth, nor was he permitted to enter 

 again imtil she whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget- 

 me-not in every corner of the world. He returned to Earth and 

 assisted her, and they went hanckin-hand over the world planting the 

 forget-me-not. When their task was ended they entered Paradise 

 together; for the fair woman, witliout tasting the bitterness of death, 

 became immortal like the angel, whose love her beauty had won when 

 she .sat by the river twining the forget-me-not in her hair." Another 

 e.xplanation is that a lover when trying to pick some blossoms of the 

 Myosotis for his lady-love was drowned, his last words as he threw 

 the flowers on the l)ank being Forget-me-not. 



Essential Specific Char.-\cters : — 



216. Myosotis scorpioidcs, L. — Root creeping, stem subercct, leaves 

 rough, with spreading hairs, shining, blunt, flowers bright-blue, with 

 yellow eye, and small ray at Ijase of corolla, in a raceme or scorpioid 

 cyme, teeth short, style equalling the caly.x, hairs on calyx straight, 

 appressed. 



Water Figwort (.Scrophularia aquatica, L.) 



South of Denmark in Europe, N. Africa, N. and W\ Asia, east- 

 wart! to the Himalayas, marks the present range of this species in the 

 X. Temperate Zone. It has not been found in any early deposits. 



In f'ircat llritain it is found in the Peninsula, Channel, Thames. Anglia, 

 and S(-\ern ])ro\inces except in Monmouth, and in S. Wales not in 

 Brecon or Radnor, but throughout the whole of N. Wales; and in the 



