LABIATE TRIBE 51 



4. Intermediate Dead Red Nettle (Z. intermMium). — Leaves blunt, 

 cut, and crenated, lower ones stalked and kidney-shaped, upper ones sessile, 

 somewhat crowded ; teeth of the calyx awl-shaped, longer than the tube, 

 always spreading ; tube of the coroUa straight, naked within ; side lobes of 

 the lower lip with a short tooth ; annual. The purplish-coloured flowers of 

 this species expand from June to September. It is a dull-looking plant, 

 about a foot high, its calyx usually tinged with purple. It is common ori 

 cultivated ground in Scotland and the north of England, but rare in Ireland. 



■ It is intermediate in character between L. purpureum and L. amphxicaule. 



5. Henbit Nettle {L. amphxicaule). — Leaves roundish, heart-shaped, 

 deeply and bluntly cut, upper sessile and clasping, lower stalked ; calyx-teeth 

 green, longer than their tube, erect after flowering ; tube of the corolla 

 straight, naked within ; annual. This is a prettier species than any other 

 of the pui'ple-flowered Dead-nettles, fcr its corollas are of so much richer 

 tint, being of a fine deep reddish-purple, on very long tubes. Early in the 

 season the flowers are small, and do not expand, but yet they are fertile, and 

 the fruit, consisting of four small nuts, is produced. The plant is about 

 half a foot or a foot high ; the stem is slender, and as it lengthens the floral 

 leaves become somewhat distant. The leaves and stem are not so dull 

 coloured as those of most of the species ; they are rarely tinted with purple, 

 and usually of a deep rich green hue. 



13. Betony (Betdnica). 



Wood Betony (B. officinalis). — Leaves oblong, heart-shaped, crenate; 

 corolla twice as long as the calyx, middle lobe of the lower lip somewhat 

 notched ; perennial. The Betony is a much prettier and brighter plant than 

 the Dead-nettles, and has one peculiarity in its mode of flowering which 

 distinguishes it from most other labiate plants, as it bears what botanists 

 term an interrupted spike. Its flowers appear in July and August, forming, 

 on a slender stem about a foot high, whorls which for an inch or more are 

 crowded closely together ; then a piece of the green stalk appears, and below 

 that portion there are again three or four whorls of flowers. The corollas 

 are bright reddish-purple, and there are always two or three pairs of sessile 

 leaves between the divisions of the spike ; the lower leaves are all stalked. 

 The plant has a slightly aromatic odour. 



We have often seen in cottages in Kent, and doTibtless there might be 

 seen also in other counties, large bundles of the "medicinal Betony," as Clare 

 calls it, hung up for winter use. An infusion of the plant is taken for colds 

 and coughs, and its slightly tonic properties render it serviceable in low fevers. 

 When used while fresh, the plant has an intoxicating property, which is 

 removed by drying. It is not, perhaps, of any great worth as a medicine, 

 and its rustic uses are doubtless remnants of usages introduced when the true 

 properties of plants were less known. Of all the herbs praised both by 

 British and Continental writers of the olden time, none, if we except the 

 vervain, was more highly esteemed than this. Antonius Musa, the physician 

 to the Emperor Augustus, wrote a whole book setting forth the excellences 

 of the herb, which he said would cure forty-seven difterent disorders ; while 

 Franzius told how even the wild beasts of the forest knew its virtues, and 



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