THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 161 



SUMMER WILD FLOWERS. 



the summer advances the flowers change their places, 

 like the stars in heaven. Erom the fields and the 

 copses they seem to be travelling to the mountains, to 

 the great lakes, to the rocky wildernesses, and the lands 

 deserted by all save them. There are flowers in the 

 meadow now whether the grass be rising fat and flowery for the 

 scythe, or be already closely shorn, and the fragrant harvest lying 

 in heaps around, while a new green blade is springing, and needs 

 but one shower to bring forth again upon the even mead the 

 delicate greenness of the spring. Flowers, indeed, are plentiful every- 

 where, but a host of elegant things that lighted up the hedgerow 

 and the meadow have departed, but the heath lands and the rocks are 

 sweetly dotted with the fresh growth of ferns, and the waters are 

 newly fringed with their own peculiar forms of vegetation. 



Glancing again at the hedgerows and gardens, we shall find 

 many flowers yet in their prime that belong rather to May than 

 June. Prominent amongst these are several of the Borage tribe, 

 renowned for the fine tones of azure and amethyst in their flowers, 

 and the presence in sensible quantities of nitrous salts in their 

 juices. One well worth searching for, and as likely to be found in 

 the cottage garden as the field, is the Lungwort, Pulmonaria offici- 

 nalis, with spotted leaves, lively pink buds, and bright blue flowers. 

 A near relation to it is the Common Gromwell, Lithospermum offici- 

 nale, which haunts rubbish heaps and dry banks. It grows a foot 

 or more high, and has rough leaves and dirty yellow flowers, which 

 are succeeded by nut-like seeds of a grey colour, which deck the 

 plant like so many pearls. The Common Borage, Borago officinalis, 

 with its splendid blue flowers, may be regarded as the type of its 

 race ; and the student of botany would do well to grow it in the 

 garden, for indeed it is rarely met with wild. It will be found that 

 the flower of this plant consists of a single petal cleft into five divisions 

 forming a proper corolla, with five stamens inserted into the corolla, 

 and alternate with its lobes. On the under side is a calyx of five divi- 

 sions. The corolla falls in one piece, leaving the calyx complete 

 to protect the seeds. The Viper's Bugloss, JEcliium vulgare, is a 

 robust and rough relative of the Borage, and one of the most splendid 

 of all our wild flowers. It attains a height of two or three feet, the 

 flower spike often measuring a foot in length. The flowers occur in a 

 successionof shortcomb-like tufts, thebuds bright pink, theflowers pale 

 blue, or full cobalt blue, or richest violet — a glorious assemblage of 

 colours that compels us to pardon the rusticity of the plant. 



Less interesting, perhaps, but more useful than any other member 

 of the Borago tribe, is the Comfrey, Symphytum officinale, which 

 may be known by its large light-green leaves, numerous bristles, 

 and clusters of white, yellow, or pink flowers, which remotely 

 resemble in form those of Solomon's Seal, though the Comfrey is 

 very far removed from that plant, which, indeed, belongs to the 

 lilies. The Comfrey affords excellent food for milch kine, and is in 



June. H 



