CLASS V. ORDER I.] MYOSOTIS, 233 



TTnhitat. — The sides of ditches, liveis, aud in damp places; frequent. 

 Peieuuial ; flowering during the summer months. 



The flowers of this plant are amongst the largest of our species, of a 

 brilliant blue, with a yellow eye, and white radiating lines around it. 

 Nothing can be more ornamental to our rivers, banks, and ditches ; 

 its numerous clusters of flowers raising their curled heads from 

 amidst the delicate green of their leaves, fail not to attract the atten- 

 tion of every rambler among the pastoral scenes where it grows, in all 

 parts of Europe. We are told that it obtained itii name of Forget 

 Me Not, and is selected as the emblem of afi"ectiou, from the circum- 

 stance that " Two lovers were walking by a river, (the Rhine, I 

 believe,) when the lady seeing and wishing for a flower of the Myosotis 

 palustris, the cavalier attempted to gather it for her, but in so doing, 

 slipped into the river and was drowned, exclaiming as he sunk, 

 ' Vergils mich nicht' — ' Forget Me Not.' " 



2. M. re'penx, Don. (Fig. 311.) creeping Water Scorpion -grass, 

 Calyx deeply five-cleft, when in fruit mostly connivent, shorter than 

 the divergent pedicle ; limb of the corolla flat, longer than the tube, 

 pubescence of the stem spreading. 



English Botany, t. 2703.— Hooker, British Flora, vol. i. p. 101. 

 under M. palustris.— lAwiWey, Synopsis, p. 326. 



This is usually a smaller plant than the above, seldom more than a 

 foot high, frequently not half that height, putting out runners from its 

 base, which take root, and the individual plant is continued. The 

 racemes are similar to M. palustris, except that the pedicles are longer, 

 especially in their deflexed state, and from the base of the first, and 

 often also from tw o or three above it, there is a small lanceolate leaf. 

 These, however, are not constant. The calt/.v is more deeply divided, 

 its segments narrower, not so open when in fruit, and the base more 

 hairy than in M. palustris. The corolla is also generally smaller, more 

 concave than flat, its lobes paler coloured, the hairiness of the stem is 

 variable, but generally more abundant than in M. palustris. 



Habitat. — Wet, boggy situations; Scotland. — Mr. G. and D. Don, 

 Dr. Murray. Kent. — Mr. D. Don. Sussex. — Mr. Borrer. York- 

 shire, (higher parts). — Mr. Backhouse. Glen Cree, Ireland. — J. Bell. 

 Banks of the River Don, above Sheffield; and the Moors, Derbyshire. — 

 R. D. 



Annual ; flowering, according to Mr. Backhouse, in Hooker's British 

 Flora, two months earlier than M. palustris. 



It is not without some hesitation that we have followed Mr. Don, in 

 considering this more than as a variety of M. palustris. It is, how- 

 ever, probably as much deserving the distinction of a species, as some 

 others that are considered so. I have gathered it from boggy places on 

 the Cintra mountains, not more than six inches long ; and about 



