The Blue Flower Border 265 



Ruskin, who called it the soft warm-scented Bru- 

 nelle, and told of the fine purple gleam of its hooded 

 blossom : " the two uppermost petals joined like an 

 old-fashioned enormous hood or bonnet ; the lower 

 petal torn deep at the edges into a kind of fringe," 

 and he said it was a "Brownie flower," a little 

 eerie and elusive in its meaning. I do not like it 

 because it has such a disorderly, unkempt look, it 

 always seems bedraggled. 



The pretty ladder-like leaf of Jacob's Ladder is 

 most delicate and pleasing in the garden, and its 

 blue bell-flowers are equally refined. This is truly 

 an old-fashioned plant, but well worth universal 

 cultivation. 



In answer to the question, What is the bluest 

 flower in the garden or field? one answered Fringed 

 Gentian ; another the Forget-me-not, which has 

 much pink in its buds and yellow in its blossoms ; 

 another Bee Larkspur ; and the others Centaurea 

 cyanus or Bachelor's Buttons, a local American name 

 for them, which is not even a standard folk name, 

 since there are twenty-one English plants called 

 Bachelor's Buttons. Ragged Sailor is another 

 American name. Corn-flower, Blue-tops, Blue 

 Bonnets, Bluebottles, Loggerheads are old English 

 names. Queerer still is the title Break-your-spec- 

 tacles. Hawdods is the oldest name of all. Fitz- 

 herbert, in his Boke of Husbandry , 1586, thus 

 describes briefly the plant : 



u Hawdod hath a blewe floure, and a few lytle leaves, 

 and hath fyve or syxe branches floured at the top." 



