190 FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 
more or less covered with prickles, which are barbed at the 
tip, attached by their sides to the base of the style. 
1. E. virginicum, Lehm. BeGe@ar’s Lice. A coarse biennial, 
2-4 ft. high, the stem much branched above. Root-leaves roundish- 
ovate or heart-shaped, on slender petioles; stem-leaves 3-4 in. long, 
pointed at both ends. Racemes 1—3 in. long, terminating the slender, 
spreading branches. Flowers small, bluish-white. Fruit forming a 
troublesome bur. Fence-rows and thickets. 
IV. MERTENSIA, Roth. 
Perennial herbs. Leaves generally pale, smooth, and entire. 
Calyx short, deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted. Corolla somewhat 
trumpet-shaped or funnel-shaped, often with 5 small folds or 
ridges in the throat, between the points of insertion of the 
stamens. Style long and slender. Nutlets smooth, or at 
length becoming wrinkled. 
1. M. virginica, DC. Lunawort, BLUEBELLS. Smooth, nearly 
erect, 1-14 ft. high. Root-leaves large, obovate, or nearly so, and 
petioled; stem-leaves smaller, sessile. Flowers clustered. Corolla 
nearly trumpet-shaped, varying with age from lilac to blue (or occa- 
sionally white). Stamens with slender filaments projecting beyond 
the corolla-tube. Damp, open woods and banks of streams, some- 
times cultivated. 
V. MYOSOTIS, Dill. 
Low, annual, biennial, or perennial herbs; stems branching, 
erect or diffuse. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers small, 
blue, pink, or white, in elongated, bractless racemes. Calyx 
5-cleft, the lobes erect or spreading in fruit. Corolla salver- 
form, 5-lobed, the tube as long as the calyx, the throat with 
5 small appendages. Stamens 5, inserted in the tube of the 
corolla, included. Ovary 4-parted; style slender. Nutlets 
smooth or downy, elliptical, compressed.* 
1. M. palustris, Withering. ForGret-mr-Not. Perennial, from 
slender rootstocks. Stems slender, downy, rooting at the nodes, 
6-15 in. long ; leaves oblong to oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, narrowed 
to the sessile base, appressed-downy. Racemes many-flowered ; pedi- 
cels becoming elongated in fruit. Lobes of the calyx shorter than 
the tube, spreading in fruit. Corolla blue with a yellow eye; nut- 
lets angled, smooth. Common in gardens and often naturalized.* 
Ys 
