14 . SCROPHULARINE^ 



Isle of Wight, is greatly lowered from the admixture of the seeds, which 

 cannot be separated from the grain by winnowing, the specific gravity of both 

 being nearly the same. These seeds impart a bluish colour to the flour, and 

 give it, when made into bread, an unwholesome flavour. The plant is known 

 in that neighbourhood as Poverty-weed, and various traditions are afloat as 

 to the manner of its introduction to this island, which, however, is not of very 

 recent date, the species having existed in some of its present stations for at 

 least forty years, and is by some supposed to have come over from Jersey, 

 where, however, it is not known at present as indigenous or introduced." 

 The writer adds, that "this unwelcome though splendid addition to the flora 

 of this island probably arose from an importation of wheat from Norfolk, or 

 some other mai^itime county. It infests only such corn-lands in the island as 

 lie over chalk, or contain a large proportion of calcareous earth." The plant 

 is in flower from June to August, and is eaten by cows, though unpleasing 

 to sheep. 



3. Common Yellow Cow-wheat {M. prafense). — Flowers axillary, in 

 pairs, all turning one way ; corolla four times as long as the calyx, lower lip 

 longer than the upper ; leaves in distant pairs, narrow, tapering, smooth ; 

 upper bracts with one or two teeth at the base ; perennial. Varieties of this 

 plant occur, in one of which the bracts are quite entire, the plant is smaller 

 and somewhat succulent ; in another the leaves are bristly, the bracts with 

 spreading teeth at the base. Though this plant is called Meadow Cow-wheat, 

 yet it is not found in pastures, but in woods and thickets. It is a very 

 common, but not a very attractive, plant, having a slender stem about a foot 

 high, with straggling opposite branches. The flowers, which appear from 

 May to August, are tubular, of very pale yellow, sometimes almost cream- 

 coloured. It is much relished by domestic animals, particularly kine ; and 

 Linnseus says that the richest and yellowest butter is made from the milk of 

 animals grazing on spots where it is abundant. It is to this circumstance 

 that the genus owes its English name ; while that of Melampyrum, black 

 wheat, originated in the form of the seed, which is much like a grain of 

 wheat, conjoined with the blackness which the plant assumes in withering. 

 This hue is most remarkable when the plant has been preserved in an 

 herbarium, where, after a time, not a spot of green or yellow is perceptible 

 in its universal inky tint, a characteristic of most of these root-parasites. 

 An old notion prevailed that this plant turned into wheat ; hence one of its 

 names was the Mother of Wheat. The French call the plant Melampire ; the 

 Germans, IVacMelweizen ; the Dutch, Akkerig zwartkoom ; the Italians, Melam- 

 piro ; the Spaniards, Trigo de vaca ; and the Swedes, Skillle. 



4. Lesser-flowered Yellow Cow-wheat {M. sylvdficum). — Flowers 

 axillary, all turning one way ; corolla open, about twice the length of the 

 calyx, the lips equal in length, the lower one turning downwards ; bracts 

 entire ; leaves slender, lanceolate, in distant pairs ; annual. This is a smaller 

 species than any of the preceding, and is a rare plant of mountainous woods 

 of the noi'th of England, but more fi'cquently found in Scotland. The stem 

 is about a foot high, the flowers about half the size of the common species, of 

 deeper yellow, and very dissimilar in shape. It flowers in July. 



The whole of these Cow-wheats are root-parasites. 



