SOME SPRING FLOWERS 



No. 2, Fig. 45, is Phacelia Whitlavia, with great, bell- 

 shaped flowers of royal purple. Its flowers are really mag- 

 nificent, but they are not so clever as those of the other 

 Phacelia. You can read their story for yourselves if you 

 watch the flowers out of doors on a still, sunny day. No. i 

 is a small specimen of another of the baby-blue-eyes family 

 that is very common in shady places. It has a pretty first 

 name, Ellisia ; the rest of the name is chrysanthemifolia^ 

 which means only chrysanthemum-like leaves. Really, they 

 are much prettier than chrysanthemum leaves ; they are 

 often mistaken for ferns early in the season before the dainty 

 little white flowers appear. The flowers provide a little 

 honey, but as they are very small, and grow in shaded 

 places, the bees are not sure to seek them, so they con- 

 tentedly pollinate themselves if guests fail to come. 



The forget-me-not, or heliotrope family, like the Pha- 

 celias, has always scorpioid flower clusters. Our forget- 

 me-nots have small flowers, but perhaps you can make out 

 that they have one style, one stigma, and an ovary that 

 breaks up into four parts. There are many kinds of the 

 white forget-me-nots. The one in the picture blooms early; 

 in Southern California, in February and March, it actually 

 whitens grassy slopes and meadows, and gives out a 

 delicious fragrance; and the botanists have called this 

 dainty blossom Plagiobothrys nothofulvus ! The flowers are 

 too small to provide much honey, and they seem able to 

 pollinate themselves, but they are sometimes visited by 

 small bees, flies and butterflies. They remain open at night, 

 and, because of their whiteness and fragrance, must attract 

 night guests also. The yellow forget-me-nots are such 

 coarse weeds that we hardly like to call them forget-me- 

 nots ; in some places the children call them woolly 

 breeches. They are sturdy successful plants. They grow 

 rapidly , are well armed against all foes, and are on the best of 



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