WATER FIG-WORT. 



Scrophularia aquatica. Nat. Ord., 

 Scrophulariacece. 



:HEREVER we find a river, 

 weed-bordered pool, or water- 

 course of any kind, there we 

 may fairly hope to find the 

 plant here figured, though, as 

 it has little to commend it, 

 when we compare it with its 

 fellows, the forget-me-not, the 

 water-lily, the flowering rush, 

 or the purple loose-strife, it, no 

 doubt, ordinarily gets over- 

 looked. The blossoms have 

 a lurid colour and fantastic 

 shape, that give the plant a 

 somewhat weird and uncanny 

 look, and one finds it difficult 

 to imagine that any one could 

 even have thought it a remedy for any of the ills of 

 life, though its generic name is a sufficient indication 

 that it has in the past been so held. Curtis, in his " Flora 

 Londinensis," admits that the plant in its wild state 

 has little to commend it as an ornamental plant, 

 but he adds that when variegated few exceed it in 

 beauty. He further tells us that in this state it was in his 



