6 SCEOPHULARINE^ 



in moist woods, having a weak tiailing stem a foot or more long, and a few 

 pale blue flowers growing in loose clusters from April to July. Its leaves 

 are large, and the plant is remarkable for its large flat seed-vessels. 



11. Germander Speedwell (F. chamcedrys). — Leaves nearly sessile, 

 egg-shaped and heart-shaped, and deeply serrate ; racemes long and many- 

 flowered ; stem ascending, hairy ; fruit-stalks ascending ; capsules flat, in- 

 versely heart-shaped, deeply notched, fringed with hair, and shorter than 

 the calyx ; perennial. If there is one of the species deserving pre-eminently 

 the old English name of Speedwell, it is this. In the latter end of April, 

 when breezes are all abroad, 



'■ Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge," 

 and when often we may hear the shower ''sing i' the wind," when violets 

 and primroses are in all their glory, and the daisies scattered over every 

 meadow, then we may find clusters of this Speedwell. The flowers are large 

 and numerous, looking like sapphires among the emerald spring verdure, 

 having petals of brilliant blue, veined with darker lines, and varied by the 

 while pollen on the blue anthers. The leaves are wrinkled, and sometimes 

 deeply serrated; and the plant has often, at the end of summer, on the 

 upper part of the stem, a number of Avhitish-green hairy knobs, which, if we 

 cut them open, we find to inclose two or three insects in the chrysalis state, and 

 of a yellowish or dull orange colour. This Speedwell is commonly by country 

 people called Cat's-eye ; and some poets, like Keats, call it Eyebright, though 

 the true eyebright is the euphrasy. Wordsworth evidently intends our 

 brilliant Veronica, in the sonnet in which he speaks of the eyebright : — 



' ' Ere yet our course was graced with social trees, 

 It lack'd not old remains of hawthorn bowers. 

 Where small birds warbled to their paramours 

 And earlier still was heard the hum of bees. 

 I saw them ply their harmless robberies. 

 And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers, 

 Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers, 

 Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze ; 

 There bloom'd the strawberry of the wilderness, 

 The ti'embling eyebright show'd her sapphire blue, 

 The thyme her purple, like the blush of even " 



Elliott also says : — 



"Blue eyebright, loveliest flower of all that grow 

 In flower-loved England." 



The French call the Speedwells Veronique ; the Germans, Ehrenpreisse ; the 

 Dutch, Eerenprys ; the Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese, Veronica. 

 The following lines were written by H. G. Adams for this volume : — 



'Ah ! tlie blue Germander Speedwell, "Common, aye ; the hand that fashion'd 



On the grassy bank that groweth ; Peerless rose and lily stately, 



Ah ! the little twinkling Cat's-eye Sent the honej^suckle twining 



'Twi.xt the April showers that bloweth, Round the elm that stands sedately ; 



Peeping, creeping, hither, thither. Clothed with golden grain the upland, 



Hiding midst the herbage rank ; And with grasses green the vale. 



And when cometh sunny weather. Furnishing to man and cattle 



Starting up as though to thank Nourishment that shall not fail. 



Him who sendeth genial sunshine That same hand the Speedwell fashion'd 



Gladdening the flow'rets all ; Perfect in its every part ; 



What, a rhyme for such a common — 'Tis a common weed, but show me 



Very common weed, and small ? Such a work of human art. 



