20 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



much shorter and smaller than the enclosing sepals, may 

 be seen within on a more critical examination. Outside and 

 beneath the true calyx may be seen four bracteas, resembling 

 a secondary calyx. The corolla is deeply cut into four 

 lobes, and the calyx and bracteal ring have each four parts, 

 while the stamens are eight in number. Its flowering 

 season is in June, July, and August. Africa is the true 

 home of the heaths, and many fine species may be found in 

 cultivation, but in Europe the ling is the most abundant 

 representative of the family. Linnaeus, in his " Flora 

 Lapponica," tells us that large tracts of Lapland are 

 covered with this heath, and that the people have an idea 

 that the whole earth is destined to be ultimately over- 

 spread by two plants, the heath and the tobacco. Their 

 prediction may not, after all, be so unreasonable as it appears 

 on the surface, for, leaving out of the question the thousands 

 of acres of heath in Scotland alone, tobacco in the only 

 form in which the Laplanders could possibly know it 

 has encircled the globe. The ling is in Wales called the 

 grug cyffredin, and in Ireland the fraogh, or the grig. 



