BORAGINACEiE. 101 



27tli day of Thiatis, which answers nearly to our August, and anyone anoinls his 

 eyes with its juice before ho speaks in the morning, he will be free from weak eyes 

 all that year. We do not find that this much-prized plant has ever been used in any 

 other arts of life, yet it is a household favourite, and reminds us that there is in the 

 human mind a deep and close association between the external beauty of nature 

 and the strongest feelings of our hearts. Who but loves to meet, as Coleridge 

 has it — 



" By rivulet or wet road-side 

 That blue and bright-eyed flow'ret of the brook 

 Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not " ? 



It is indeed prominent amongst 



" The token flowers that tell 

 Wliat words can never speak so well." 



SPECIES III.— M YOSOTIS REPENS. Don. 

 Plate MCV. 



Rootstock short, scarcely creeping, but stoloniferous ; stolons spread- 

 ing above ground, with large leaves before the end of summer, at 

 length rooting at the apex only. Stem erect, slightly branched, with 

 the pubescence in the lower part dense, stiff, and spreading. Lower 

 leaves oblanceolate, gradually attenuated towards the base into rather 

 indistinct petioles, very obtuse ; stem' leaves sessile, subdecurrent, 

 strapshaped-oblong, obtuse, thinly clothed witli somewhat spreading 

 pubescence. Pedicels slender, in fruit horizontal or recurved-divaricate, 

 subsecund, all without bracts, longer than the calyx, the lower ones 

 2 to 4 times as long. Calyx with adpressed straight hairs, fimnel- 

 shaped-bellshaped and open in fruit ; segments triangular-strapshaped 

 divided more than half-way down. Corolla limb flat, rather more 

 than twice as wide across as the length of the tube ; segments 

 about as broad as long, slightly emarginate. Style nearly as long as 

 the calyx. Plant dull green, with scarcely any lustre. 



In wet places and ditches. Widely distributed, but rather scarce in 

 England. Plentiful in Scotland, and extending to the extreme north 

 of that country. Widely distributed in Ireland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Pereimial. Sunmier, Autumn. 



This plant is apparently very imperfectly known, but appears to be 

 quite distinct from M. palustris, with which most of the continental 

 botanists join it, or at least its name appears as a synonym, though I 

 do not venture to quote it as such -without some assurance that the 

 continental M. repens is really the same as Don's plant. 



The stolons of M. repens sj^read in all directions, and have large 

 leaves even in summer ; they take i*oot and sometimes flower the same 

 year, but more frequently not till the following spring ; tliey are 



