WOOD FORGET-ME-NOT 77 



lower petiolate, lanceolate-ovate, upper sessile, oblong, flower pink and 

 blue or pale purple. 



Wood Forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica, Hoffm.) 



Though no species of this genus have yet been found in England 

 in ancient deposits, they are known from Gothland, Sweden. In Arctic 

 Europe, the Canaries, Siberia, Dahuria, and West Asia, or the North 

 Temperate and Arctic Zones, this plant is found generally. In Great 

 Britain it is found in N. Wilts, N. Hants, E. Sussex in the Channel 

 province; not in Kent in the Thames province, or Middlesex, Oxford, 

 Bucks. In Anglia it is found only in Suffolk and Norfolk, in the 

 Severn province in East Gloucs, Monmouth, Worcester, Warwick, 

 Stafford, Salop. In Wales it grows only in Carnarvon and Anglesea, 

 in the Trent province it is general, but not in Lines, and not in Mid 

 Lanes in the Mersey province; but it occurs throughout the Humber 

 and Tyne provinces, in Cumberland, in the Lake province, in Dum- 

 fries, Kirkcudbright, W. Lowlands, Berwick, Edinburgh, in E. Low- 

 lands, Stirling, Eorfar, Kincardine, in E. Highlands, and in N. Ebudes. 

 It is found in Yorks at 1200 ft. This species is absent from Ireland. 



The Wood Forget-me-not is very local in its distribution, and is 

 perhaps most uniformly dispersed in central England, where it is 

 abundant and widespread in woods and copses, so much so as in places 

 to give quite as characteristic an appearance as the Bluebell in spring. 



This is one of the tallest of Forget-me-nots, growing usually in 

 dense clumps, with a tall, erect stem, branched above, with oblong, 

 lance-shaped leaves on long leaf-stalks, with spreading hairs. 



The large flowers are a beautiful pale blue like enamel. They are 

 borne on large loose one-sided cymes on long flower-stalks, twice as 

 long as the calyx, which is 5-fid, divided more than half its length, 

 spreading, with unequal segments, which are acute, and is rounded 

 below and closed in fruit. The corolla limb is flat and longer than the 

 tube, which is straight. The nuts are brown, keeled, and attached by 

 the narrow end. 



The flower is 2 ft. high. It is in bloom in June and July. The 

 Wood Forget-me-not is perennial, increasing by division, and equal to 

 garden forms. 



The anthers attached to the corolla just above the stigma pro- 

 ject above the corolla when the flower opens, are inclined upwards, 

 and open longitudinally, being covered with pollen inside like a 

 figure-of-eight, .005 m. by .003 m. The flower is homogamous, i.e. 



