222 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



and usually dark green, but may be red below, coloured by anthocyan, 

 which turns the light rays into heat. The red underside helps to 

 retain light. 



The flowers are in whorls, in a dense spike which is tapering, 

 the flower-stalks short, with bracts or leaflike organs shorter than the 

 flowers, and often like the flowers purplish-blue, with a metallic tinge. 

 The calyx of 5 segments is blue. The corolla is gaping, with a ring 

 of hairs within the tube protecting the honey. The upper lip is very 

 short. The bracts cover the anthers and stiema. 



BUGLE (Ajuga reptans, L.) 



Bugle is 6 in. to i ft. high. The plant blooms in May and June. 

 It is perennial and propagated by division, and quite deserves a place 

 in the garden. 



The flowers are proterogynous, and the stigma is ripe when the 

 flowers open, or homogamous or proterandrous. The lobes spread out, 

 and are covered with wart-like knobs, but as in Teucrium it is protected 

 by the stamens. The flowers are close together, and though the upper 

 lip is short (or absent) the honey is protected from the rain by the 

 intervening bracts. The stamens later separate and the stigma is then 

 accessible. The tube of the corolla is 9 mm. long and 2^ mm. wide 



