216 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 
The anthers open inwards. All the anthers open if one is lightly 
touched. Hairs at the side directed downwards prevent the scattering 
of the pollen and ensure its transfer to the insect’s proboscis. 
The flowers are visited by the Honey Bee, Bomdus lapidarius, and 
B. silvarum. Vhe capsule splits open when ripe and opens above, 
and the seeds are dispersed around the parent plant. 
Red Bartsia is a sand-loving plant, addicted especially to a sand soil, 
but it is also a clay-loving plant, and will grow on clay soil, whilst, 
being parasitic, it always requires pasture land. 
Two fungi, Plasmopora densa and Coleosporium euphrasia, attack 
the leaves. 
Bartsia, Linnzeus, is named after Bartsch, a Dutch botanist, who 
died in 1738, and Odontztes, Pliny, is from the Greek, odous, tooth, 
because it was used for the toothache. 
This plant is called Red Eyebright, Eyebright Cow Wheat, Hen 
Gorse, Sanctuary. 
EssENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
239. Bartsta Odontites, WHuds.—Stem erect, branched, leaves 
linear-lanceolate, narrowed below, serrate, flowers rose colour, in 
a one-sided raceme. 
Wood Basil (Clinopodium vulgare, L.) 
Wood Basil is a southern plant not found in early deposits. It is 
confined to the Northern Temperate Zone in Europe, N. Africa, 
N. and W. Asia, as far east as Japan, and the Himalayas. It is wild 
in Canada, and has been introduced into the United States. In Great 
Britain it is found in the Peninsula, Channel, and Thames provinces, 
but not in Hunts in Anglia, occurring throughout the Severn provinces, 
but in South Wales not in Cardigan; in N. Wales only in Denbigh, 
Flint, and Anglesea; in the Trent, Mersey, Humber, Tyne, and Lakes 
provinces, except in the Isle of Man; in the W. Lowlands; in the E. 
Lowlands, except in Peebles, Selkirk, Haddington; in the E. Highlands, 
except in Stirling, N. Aberdeen; and in Dumbarton in the W. High- 
lands. It is found at 1000 ft. in the Highlands, but is rare in Ireland. 
This plant is fairly ubiquitous in its choice of habitat, which is 
always of an upland character. It is to be found chiefly in rocky dis- 
tricts, being in this way more or less a rock plant. It occurs frequently 
by the wayside, in ditches or on banks, in dry open pastures, and often 
in woods, which last is indeed a sure place in which to search for it. 
The stem is slender, wavy, usually simple, with distant, downy, 
