22 THE PLANT-WORLD IN MARCH. 



to look at them at closer quarters, are not the least violet- 

 like in form. They are little trumpet-shaped tubes with 

 two lobes on one side of their mouths and three spread 

 out on the other. "Blue-runner," "Robin run in the 

 hedge," or " Gill go by the ground," are names the ap- 

 plication of which is obvious ; but some explanation is 

 perhaps necessary of the fact of so humble a plant having 

 so many popular appellations, and this explanation we get 

 in the two additional names "Ale-hoof" and "Tun-foot." 

 This now despised plant was the predecessor of the hop 

 in Old English brewing, having an aromatic bitter taste; 

 and the leaves were compared by our ancestors to a foot 

 or hoof, as were those of dozens of other plants. 



If the season be an early one we may hope to find either 

 the field scorpion-grass, or more probably the yet earlier 

 species, the scientific name of which (collina) implies 

 inaccurately that it is specially characteristic of hills. Both 

 these dry land representatives of the more attractive forget- 

 me-not have minute blue flowers, only an eighth or a sixth 

 of an inch across; but perhaps the most obvious distinctions 

 between them are that the former (the field species) has 

 its leaves stalked and each flower furnished with a stalk 

 several times longer than itself, whilst the early species 

 has hardly any stalk to the leaves, the separate flower- 

 stalks not longer than the flowers themselves, and (most 

 easily recognised of characters) one little flower some 

 distance below the rest. Whilst the Latin name of the 

 genus (Myosotis), meaning " mouse-ear," applies to their 

 downy leaves, the old English name, "scorpion -grass," 

 refers probably to the way in which the stalk of flowers 

 is rolled up in the bud, suggesting the tail of a scorpion. 

 This, as also the surface rough with hairs, is, however, 



