218 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



Wood Basil is usually about i ft. high. The flowers are in full 

 bloom in June, July, and August. The plant is perennial, propagated 

 by division. 



The stamens and stigma vary considerably in structure. The 

 nectaries and the receptacle for honey are of the usual labiate type. 

 The tube of the corolla is 10-13 mm. long, and the honey fills it up to 

 a height of 3 mm. The inferior lobe of the style forms a broad, lance- 

 shaped lamina, which is turned down, and is not distinctly covered with 

 wart-like knobs. The upper one is narrower and shorter, and varies 

 in size. The stamens may all or partly be useless. The Cabbage 

 White Butterfly (Pieris brassicte) and Satyrus visit it. The herma- 

 phrodite flowers may be either large, and the anthers ripe first, or 

 small, when the anthers ripen with the stigma. 



The nutlets are free, and fall off around the parent plant, which is 

 thus dispersed by its own agency. 



This is a rock-loving species growing on rock soil, which may be 

 a sand soil or a lime soil. 



A fungus, Pnccinia mentha, attacks the leaves. Two moths, 

 Hadena Chenopodii, Stephensia brunnichella, and a Heteropterous 

 insect, Eysarcoris melanocephalus, are found on Wood Basil. 



Clinopodium, Dioscorides, is from the Greek dine, bed, pous, foot. 

 The tufted whorls have been compared to the castor of a bed, and the 

 second name refers to its common occurrence. 



This pretty wildflower is called Field, Stone, Wood Basil, Basil- 

 weed, Bed'sfoot, Horse Thyme. 



It was regarded as an emblem of the devil in Crete, and placed as 

 a charm on window ledges. It was employed in love matters. It was 

 said to wither in the hands of the impure. Bacon said that if exposed 

 too much to the sun it changed into Wild Thyme, an incipient idea 

 of evolution. In Persia there is a couplet, which, translated, runs thus: 



" The basil tuft that waves 

 Its fragrant blossom over graves ". 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



251. Clinopodium vulgare, L. Stem erect, slender, leaves dentate, 

 ovate, bracts setaceous, forming an involucre, flowers purple, in dense 

 whorls, branched, axillary, calyx straight. 



