46 FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 
ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
106. Pyrus Aucuparia, Ehrh.—Tree, leaflets pinnate, serrate, hairy 
below, green, 6-8 pairs, flowers white, in corymb, berries red, sub- 
globose. 
Rosebay (Epilobium angustifolium, L.) 
The charming Rosebay, known in our gardens as well as the fields, 
is found in the Temperate and Arctic parts of Europe at the present 
day (there are no earlier records), in N. and W. Asia, as far east as the 
Himalayas, and in America. In Great Britain it has not been found 
in Cornwall, but in the rest of the Peninsula, and the whole of the 
Channel and Thames provinces. In Anglia it is not found in West 
Suffolk and Cambridge nor in Hunts or Northants, but throughout 
the Severn province; in Wales only in Glamorgan, Brecon, Cardigan, 
Merioneth, Carnarvon, Denbigh, Anglesea, and Flint. It is not found 
in S. Lincs or Notts.in the Trent province, but throughout the Mersey 
and Humber provinces except in S.E. Yorks, and throughout the 
Tyne and Lakes provinces. In Scotland it is found throughout the 
W. Lowlands, except in Wigtown and Renfrew; in the S. Lowlands, 
except in Peebles, Selkirk, Haddington; the whole of E. Highlands, 
West Highlands, except Mid Ebudes; and in the North Highlands 
everywhere except in E. Sutherland. It is found in the Highlands at 
2700 ft., and in N, and E. Ireland. 
The Rosebay is a woodland plant, delighting in a rocky upland 
clearing, but growing as frequently on the loose rubble of a quarry side 
or wherever natural scars and crags are exposed, in the neighbourhood 
of woods. One of our handsomest wild flowers, held also in admira- 
tion in the garden, Rosebay is tall, erect, much branched, with 
numerous long, narrow, lance-shaped, veined, scattered leaves, alter- 
nate, with a white midrib and whitish under side, the margin minutely 
and finely toothed. The stems are downy. The bracts or leaf-like 
organs are like the leaves connected with the flower. The second 
Latin name explains the shape of the leaves. 
The first Latin name refers to the inferior position of the ovary 
below the perianth, the flowers apparently resting on a lobe or pod 
(later). The flowers are purple, unequal or irregular, in a spike. The 
calyx is spreading and free, the stigma is bent. 
The plant is 3-4 ft. high. It flowers in July and August. It is 
perennial, increasing by division, and often cultivated. 
Sprengel, as long ago as 1790, showed that the flowers, which open 
soon after sunrise, are _proterandrous, i.e. the anthers ripen first, though 
