922 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 
and usually dark green, but may be red below, coloured by anthocyan, 
which turns the light rays into heat. The red underside helps to 
retain light. 
The flowers are in whorls, in a dense spike which is tapering, 
the flower-stalks short, with bracts or leaflike organs shorter than the 
flowers, and often like the flowers purplish-blue, with a metallic tinge. 
The calyx of 5 segments is blue. The corolla is gaping, with a ring 
of hairs within the tube protecting the honey. The upper lip is very 
short. The bracts cover the anthers and stigma. 
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Photo, C. Allen 
BUGLE (Ajuga reptans, L.) 
Bugle is 6 in. to 1 ft. high. The plant blooms in May and June. 
It is perennial and propagated by division, and quite deserves a place 
in the garden. 
The flowers are proterogynous, and the stigma is ripe when the 
flowers open, or homogamous or proterandrous. The lobes spread out, 
and are covered with wart-like knobs, but as in Zewcrzum it is protected 
by the stamens. The flowers are close together, and though the upper 
lip is short (or absent) the honey is protected from the rain by the 
intervening bracts. The stamens later separate and the stigma is then 
accessible. The tube of the corolla is 9 mm. long and 24 mm. wide 
