272 THE NEMOPHILA FAMILY. 



Immediately they are put in water, the mucus in which they are 

 embedded softens and dissolves, and the spirals dart out in a perfect 

 cloud, enveloping the seed in ringlets. Of course it is only under the 

 microscope that this truly beautiful phenomenon can be witnessed. 

 The seed of the Collomia (purchaseable at any seed-shop) is the best 

 for examination. A small bit of the testa should be cut oflp, and laid 

 in a drop of water, with the surface uppermost. 



The temperate parts of America are the chief abodes of the family ; 

 they arc unknown in the tropics, and a few only inhabit Asia and 

 Europe. One species, widely diffused over the higher latitudes of the 

 whole of the northern hemisphere, is found wild in England, and 

 occurs on the verge of the Manchester Flora, viz., the Jacob's ladder, 

 or Greek valerian, the latter name singularly inappropriate, as it has 

 nothing whatever in common with the true valerians. The Jacob's 

 ladder is an elegant perennial, with leaves formed of ten to twenty 

 lanceolate and entire segments resembling leaflets, ai*ranged in pairs 

 on a stalk eight inches or more in length, and growing in dense radical 

 tufts of a light and tender green. The stem is erect, angular, panicled, 

 twelve or eighteen inches high, with a few leaves resembling the 

 others, only smaller, and a shewy terminal corymb of blue or white 

 flowers. The petals are broad, round, and but slightly united. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 Jacob's Ladder — [Polemonium coerideum.) 

 Abundant in fields and by hedgerows near the Buxton Road, beyond 

 Whaley Bridge. Fl. June, July. 



E. B. i. U; Baxter, ii. U9. 

 Vei7 common in gardens, especially old-fashioned ones. 



Few families of such limited extent supply our gardens with so many pretty 

 flowers. The forty or fifty species of Phlox, beginning in the spring, and liisiing 

 till the very end of the autunm ; the delicate and shewy annuals called Gilia 

 tricolor and Leptosiphon densiJloYus, with several others of the same genera, the 

 Colldmias, the Ipomopsis, and the Cobaa scandens, are members of this uniformly 

 pleasing race. A large proportion of them are from California, and other parts 

 of North America in the same latitude. 



LXXIX.— THE NEMOPIIILA FAMILY. HrjdrophylMceo!. 



The Hydrophyllacea;, as known in England, are pretty little annuals 

 of the flower-garden, including the blue Nemophila insignis, the white 

 Nemophila atomdria, the Eutoca viscida, and the elegant genus 



