104 



FIELD AND WOODLAND PLANTS 



deeply cut in a serrate manner ; tlie lower ones being cordate, 

 while the upper are more triangular. The flowers are of a rose- 

 red colour, in crowded whorls near the top of the stem. The 

 tube of the corolla is shorter than the calyx, and straight ; and the 

 teeth of the calyx are about as long as its tube. The plant grows 

 from six to eighteen inches in height, and flowers throughout the 

 whole of spring and summer. 



Another common Labiate — the Ground Ivy {Nepeta Glechoma) 



— may be seen almost 

 everywhere in the 

 spring, in bloom from 

 March to May. It has 

 a procumbent, creep- 

 ing stem, and deeply- 

 crenate, kidney-shaped 

 leaves. The flowers 

 are of a blue-purple 

 colour, arranged in 

 whorls of three or four 

 in the axils of the 

 leaves. The calyx has 

 five teeth and fifteen 

 ribs ; and the Uvo front 

 stamens are shorter. 



The Early Field 

 Scorpion Grass [Myo- 

 sotis collina) belongs to 

 the order Boraginacece 

 — a family of (usually) 

 hairy herbs with alternate leaves and one-sided spikes or racemes of 

 showy flowers. The flowers have a five-lobed calyx and corolla, five 

 stamens, and a fruit of four nutlets. It is in the same genus as the 

 famihar Forget-me-not, and, in fact, somewhat closely resembles that 

 plant, which is often confused with certain species of Scorpion Grass. 

 It is a slender, more or less prostrate herb, with blunt oblong leaves; 

 and minute, bright blue flowers which are at first hidden among 

 the leaves, but afterwards exposed by the lengthening of the stem. 

 The flowers have very short pedicels ; and are in long, slender, 

 leafless, spikelike racemes, with a single flower some distance 

 down, in the axil of the highest leaf. The popular name of Scorpion 

 Grass has been given on account of the characteristic arrangement 



The Dog's Mercury. 



