OF BRITISH PLANTS. 83 



mein to the Teucrium Botrys, L. under the Lai synonym 

 of Chamaedrys vera fcemina. His excellent plate at p. 870 

 leaves no doubt as to the species he meant. In Denmark 

 a corresponding name, Forglemm mig icke, was given to the 

 Veronica chamsedrys. At the same time it would seem 

 that in some parts of Germany the Myosotis palustris was 

 known as the Echium amoris, and Vergiss mein nicht, as at 

 the present day ; and in Swedish the Echium aquaticum, 

 the same plant, was called forgdt mig icke. Some idea of 

 the confusion will be seen in Mentzel's Index Nominum 

 Plantarum, Berlin, 1682. Cordus on Dioscorides, in 1549, 

 and Lonicerus assign it to Gnaphalium leontopodium, L. 

 while the Ortus Sanitatis (Ed. 1536, ch. 199) r and Macer 

 de virtutibus herbarum (Ed. 1559), like the Danish Her- 

 balists, give it to the Veronica Chamsedrys, L. This latter 

 seems to be the plant to which the name rightfully belongs, 

 and to which it was given in reference to the blossoms 

 falling off and flying away. See SPEEDWELL. From this 

 plant it will have been transferred to the ground-pine 

 through a confusion in respect to which species should 

 properly be called Chamadrys, and as both these very 

 different plants were taken for the Chamsedrys of Pliny, 

 the popular name of the one passed to the other. Two 

 circumstances about it are curious; first, how the name 

 could be transferred from the ground-pine to the scorpion- 

 grass without the change being noticed by a single author 

 of all our floras, general and local; and secondly, how 

 easily a good story is got up, and widely spread about the 

 world, to match a name. The blossoms fall from a Ve- 

 ronica, and it is called " Speedwell ! and " Forget-me-not." 

 The name passes to a plant of nauseous taste, the ground- 

 pine, and Dalechamp explains it as expressive of this dis- 

 agreeable quality. It attaches itself to a river-side plant, 

 and the story books are ready with a legend. We learn 

 from Mills's History of Chivalry that a flower that bore the 



