II. PINGUICULA. 45 



which we have not in England, who might be the Re- 

 gina, if the group were large enough to be reigned over : 

 but it is better not to affect Royalty among these con- 

 fused, intermediate, or dependent families. 



2. In all the varieties of Pinguicula, each blossom has 

 one stalk only, growing from the ground ; and you may 

 pull all the leaves away from the base of it, and keep 

 the flower only, with its bunch of short fibrous roots, 

 half an inch long ; looking as if bitten at the ends. 

 Two flowers, characteristically, three and four very 

 often, spring from the same root, in places where it 

 grows luxuriantly ; and luxuriant growth means that 

 clusters of some twenty or thirty stars may be seen on 

 the surface of a square yard of boggy ground, quite to 

 its mind; but its real glory is in harder life, in the cran- 

 nies of well- wetted rock. 



3. What I have called ' stars ' are irregular clusters of 

 approximately, or tentatively, five aloeine ground leaves, 

 of very pale green, they may be six or seven, or more, 

 but always run into a rudely pentagonal arrangement, 

 essentially first trine, with two succeeding above. 

 Taken as a whole the plant is really a main link between 

 violets and Droseras ; but the flower has much more 

 violet than Drosera in the make of it, spurred, and^tv?- 

 petaled* and held down by the top of its bending stalk 



* When I have the chance, and the time, to submit the proofs of 

 ' Proserpina ' to friends who know more of Botany than I, or have 



