III. VERONICA. 69 



12. Of these many and various forms, I find the man- 

 ners and customs alike inconstant ; and this of especially 

 singular in them that the Alpine and northern species 

 bloom hardily in contest with the retiring snows, while 

 with us they wait till the spring is past, and offer them- 

 selves to us only in consolation for the vanished violet 

 and primrose. As we farther examine the ways of 

 plants, I suppose we shall find some that determine upon 

 a fixed season, and will bloom methodically in June or 

 July, whether in Abyssinia or Greenland; and others, 

 like the violet and crocus, which are flowers of the spring, 

 at whatever time of the favouring or frowning year the 

 spring returns to their country. I suppose also that 

 botanists and gardeners know all these matters thorough- 

 ly : but they don't put them into their books, and the 

 clear notions of them only come to me now, as I think 

 and watch. 



13. Broadly, however, the families of the Veronica 

 fall into three main divisions, those which have round 

 leaves lobed at the edge, like ground ivy ; those which 

 have small thyme-like leaves ; and those which have long 

 leaves like a foxglove's, only smaller never more than 

 two or two and a half inches long. I therefore take them 

 in these connections, though without any bar between 

 the groups ; only separating the Regina from the other 

 thyme-leaved ones, to give her due precedence ; and the 

 rest will then arrange themselves into twenty families, 

 easily distinguishable and memorable. 



