THE BUGLE AND TALL FESCUE GRASS. 139 



and have a tube terminating in a broad lower expansion, 

 which is generally cut up into several lobes, and an upper 

 portion, which ordinarily is simple in form. In the bugle 

 the tube of the blossom is much longer than the calyx ; 

 the upper lip of the flower is short and inconspicuous, the 

 lower lip is much larger and cut into three lobes. The 

 flowers grow in a ring, or whorl, and spring from the 

 axils of almost all the leaves. As the upper leaves are 

 much closer together than those on the lower part of the 

 stem, the head of flowers grows more dense. The whorls 

 differ a good deal in the number of flowers constituting 

 them ; sometimes there will be but seven or eight in the 

 ring, while in other cases eighteen or twenty may be 

 found. The flowers are of a purplish -blue, and ordinarily 

 the whole of the upper portion of the plant partakes of this 

 colour. We have occasionally found a variety of the plant 

 having white blossoms ; in this the stem and leaves are 

 pale green ; there is none of the rich warmth of colour in 

 the general mass of the flowering-stem that in the normal 

 state of the plant as in the ground ivy, again is such a 

 characteristic and pleasing feature. 



The bugle is found in damp shady pastures and woods, 

 and is abundantly distributed throughout Britain. It 

 will ordinarily be found in flower by about the end of 

 April, and lasts in blossom till nearly the end of June. It 

 is a perennial. 



An allied species, the Ajnga chamixpUys, or yellow bugle, 

 is not uncommonly met with in some of the southern and 

 eastern counties of England. The leaves are very closely 

 placed together, and each leaf is divided almost to its base 

 into three very long and narrow segments. It is not 

 altogether unlike the long needle-like foliage of the pine, 



