294 



FIELD AND WOODLAND PLANTS 



In the order Boraainaceoe we have the Small Bugloss {Lycopsis 

 arvensis), a branched plant, from six inches to two feet in height, 

 covered all over with stiff bristles that are swollen at the base. Its 

 leaves are oblong or very narrow, wavy, and sometimes toothed; 

 the upper ones sessile and often clasping the stem ; and the lower 



frequently shortly 

 stalked. The flowers are 

 small, pale blue, in simple 

 or branched, one-sided 

 spikes. They have a 

 deeply-cleft calyx of five 

 segments ; and the species 

 may be distinguished 

 from other, somewhat 

 similar plants of the 

 same order by the form 

 of the tube of the corolla, 

 which is always bent in 

 the middle. This plant 

 is very common in the 

 corn fields of most parts ; 

 and flowers during June 

 and July. 



Our next flower is 

 the pretty little Scarlet 

 Pimpernel or Poor Man's 

 Weather Glass [Anagallis 

 arvensis) of the Primrose 

 order {Primulacece), which 

 is very common in corn- 

 fields and on other 

 cultivated ground, 

 flowering from May to very late in the autumn. The stem 

 of this plant is procumbent and much branched, the branches 

 sometimes reaching a length of considerably more than a 

 foot ; and its leaves are opposite, sessile, broadly ovate, undivided, 

 and dotted beneath. The Httle flowers are solitary in the axils 

 of the leaves, on long, slender peduncles that are always curved 

 backwards as the fruits ripen. The calyx is deeply cleft into five 

 pointed segments ; and the bright scarlet (occasionally pink or 

 white) corolla, fringed with minute hairs, spreads its five lobes 



The Dwarf Spurge. 



