MYOSOTIS. 
and ample, generous sprays of big flowers, brilliantly blue, which, 
despite the branching of the stems, seem always to be sitting tight 
upon the tiny cushion, so close and small is the habit of the plant. 
M. lithospermifolia has no merits that call for comment, any more 
than M. caespitosa or M. sylvatica, of which, however, the former has 
the charm of tight clumps, beset with azure stars. But have we not 
Abana and Pharpar of our own, rivers of Damascus, in the sufficing 
and swamping personality of M. rupicola ? 
M. macrantha has the same habit as VM. concinna, but the lobes are 
shallow and the flower-tube long, while the whole plant is less silky. 
It justifies its name by being large-flowered indeed, and its wide-eyed 
stars of tawny orange have their mouths filled with the most delicious 
sweetness. It is a not uncommon sub-alpine species of the South 
Island, and there is a variety M. m. pulchra that is more diffuse and 
less bristly-haired. 
M. palustris, the Water Forget-me-not of our ditches, would have 
a place in all our swamps were it not itself outswamped by its larger 
semperflorens form, which in its turn is pushed aside by its own 
various varieties—a very proper reward for its undutiful behaviour 
to its own parent-type. These are Fairy’s Eye (Nixenauge), with 
particularly large blossoms; the terribly named Graf Waldersee, early 
and dark; and stabiana, the darkest blue of all. These with their 
parents are glories of the whole season, beside the pond or stream, espe- 
cially admirable for helping Mimulus to hide the borders of the pool. 
M. pulchra. See under M. macrantha. 
M. pulvinaris, with M. uniflora and M. Hectori, has the high 
honour of bearing up the mantle of Eritrichium in the Alps of New 
Zealand, which they discreetly and reverently do by forming neat and 
woolly cushions, which they then make no attempt to deccrate with 
the King’s royal blue, but stud them instead with many pretty stars 
of yellow or white, sitting, unlike Eritrichium’s, lonely over the tufts, 
as in Androsace, each at the end of a shoot of its own. Try moraine. 
M. Rehsteineri has no certain claim to more than varietal rank. 
It is, in any case, a charmingly neat little smooth-leaved prostrate 
and creeping species, near M. palustris, but forming dainty carpets of 
very bright green foliage in level damp places, which it copiously 
bejewels with clear-blue stars in summer. In cultivation it should be 
' looked to, and divided from time to time, lest the wide mat grow too 
big for itself and miff suddenly away in winter. It has its home by the 
shores of some Swiss lakes, but may also be seen from time to time in 
the Southern ranges, as amid the black and blasted rocks of Bobbio, 
M. repens need not be bothered with. 
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