122 FLOWERS OF LAKES, RIVERS, ETC. 



The plant is aquatic, and needs no soil except the usual sub- 

 aqueous mud. 



Two beetles, Prasocuris junci, Gymnometron beccabunga, and a 

 moth, Athalia anmdata, feed on it. 



Beccabzmga, Dodonseus, is from German Bach bunge bach, a brook, 

 bunge, bunch. 



The plant is called Becky-leaves, Broklembe, Brooklime, Cow- 

 cress, Horse Cress, Horse-well Grass, Limewort, Limpwort, Water 

 Pimpernel, Wall-ink, Water Purpy, Well-ink. In Chaucer's day it was 

 used for swellings, gout, &c. It is gathered with Water Cress, being 

 acrid, disagreeable, and poisonous. But it is used as a spring salad 

 occasionally. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



237. Veronica Beccabnnga, L. Stem rooting below, prostrate, 

 glabrous, leaves stalked, oval, serrate, flowers blue, in axillary racemes, 

 capsule globular. 



Water Mint (Mentha aquatica, L.) 



Like numerous other aquatic types, Water Mint finds a place in the 

 ancient floras preserved to us. It is represented in Preglacial beds at 

 Pakefield, Suffolk; Interglacial and Roman beds at Silchester. The 

 present distribution of the plant is Europe, N. Africa, N. and W. Asia, 

 and it has been introduced into North America. This plant is uni- 

 versal in distribution in Britain, growing in every county in Great 

 Britain as far north as the Orkneys, and up to a height of 1500 ft., for 

 instance, in Yorks. It is a native also of Ireland and the Channel 

 Islands. 



Water Mint is a hygrophyte, luxuriating in the moisture of river- 

 sides, wet places by ditches, pools, and ponds, around the margins of 

 which it forms quite a fringe in many places. Wherever a spring 

 issues from a hill-side, one will also find it. It is a regular component 

 of marsh and bog floras. 



The stem is erect, stoloniferous with creeping shoots, many growing 

 in a bed in association, square, roughly hairy, and leafy. The leaves 

 are egg-shaped, stalked, coarsely toothed, roughly hairy, heart-shaped 

 at the base. The uppermost leaves answer as bracts, and are less than 

 the flowers. 



The flowers are in a globular head, lilac, in whorls or forming 

 a terminal head. The teeth of the calyx equal the tube, and are tri- 

 angular. The calyx is regular or 2 -lipped, glandular and hairy both 



