WATER FTGWORT 115 



be thus dispersed, or they may fall into the water in the first place and 

 be dispersed by water. 



Marsh Forget-me-not is a peat-loving plant requiring a peaty soil, 

 or a clay-loving plant growing on clay soil. 



Two fungi, Peronospora myosotidis and Entyloma jergussoni, infest 

 the plant, and a Heteropodous insect, Monanthia humuli, and a 

 Homopterous insect, Liburnia fieberi, feed on it. 



Myosotis, Dioscorides, is from the Greek mus, mouse, and ous, ear, 

 because the leaves resemble a mouse's ear; and the second Latin name 

 refers to the scorpioid type of cyme. 



Marsh Forget-me-not is also known by the names Bird's-eye, Catter- 

 pillars, Forget-me-not, Snake Grass, Love-me, Mouse-ear Scorpion- 

 grass. The origin of the name is so described by Shiraz: " It was in 

 the golden morning of the early world when an angel sat weeping out- 

 side the closed gates of Eden. He had fallen from his high estate 

 through loving a daughter of Earth, nor was he permitted to enter 

 again until she whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget- 

 me-not in every corner of the world. He returned to Earth and 

 assisted her, and they went hand-in-hand over the world planting the 

 forget-me-not. When their task was ended they entered Paradise 

 together; for the fair woman, without tasting the bitterness of death, 

 became immortal like the angel, whose love her beauty had won when 

 she sat by the river twining the forget-me-not in her hair." Another 

 explanation is that a lover when trying to pick some blossoms of the 

 Myosotis for his lady-love was drowned, his last words as he threw 

 the flowers on the bank being Forget-me-not. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



216. Myosotis scorpioides, L. Root creeping, stem suberect, leaves 

 rough, with spreading hairs, shining, blunt, flowers bright-blue, with 

 yellow eye, and small ray at base of corolla, in a raceme or scorpioid 

 cyme, teeth short, style equalling the calyx, hairs on calyx straight, 

 appressed. 



Water Figwort (Scrophularia aquatica, L.) 



South of Denmark in Europe, N. Africa, N. and W. Asia, east- 

 ward to the Himalayas, marks the present range of this species in the 

 N. Temperate Zone. It has not been found in any early deposits. 

 In Great Britain it is found in the Peninsula, Channel, Thames, Anglia, 

 and Severn provinces except in Monmouth, and in S. Wales not in 

 Brecon or Radnor, but throughout the whole of N. Wales; and in the 



