7S PROSERPINA. 



it lias lost its perfect grace in luxuriance, growing as 

 large as an asphodel, and with root-leaves half a foot long. 



The petals are much veined; and this, of all veronicas, 

 has the lower petal smallest in proportion to the three 

 above, " triplo aut quadruple) minori." (G.) 



17. Stagnarum. Marsh - Veronica. The last four 

 families we have been examining vary from the typical 

 Veronicas not only in their lance-shaped clusters, but in 

 their lengthened, and often every way much enlarged 

 leaves also : and the two which we now will take in asso- 

 ciation, 17 and 18, carry the change in aspect farthest 

 of any, being both of them true water-plants, with strong 

 stems and thick leaves. The present name of my Veron- 

 ica Stagnarum is however V. anagallis, a mere insult to 

 the little water primula, which one plant of the Veronica 

 would make fifty of. This is a rank water-weed, having 

 confused bunches of blossom and seed, like unripe cur- 

 rants, dangling from the leaf -axils. So that where the 

 little triphylla, (No. 7, above,) has only one blossom, 

 daintily set, and well seen, this has a litter of twenty- 

 five or thirty on a long stalk, of which only three or four 

 are well out as flowers, and the rest are mere knobs of 

 bud or seed. The stalk is thick (half an inch round at 

 the bottom), the leaves long and misshapen. " Frequens 

 in fossis," D. 203. French, Mouron d'Ean, but I don't 

 know the root or exact meaidng of Mouron. 



An ugly Australian species, 'labiata,' C. 1660, has 

 leaves two inches long, of the shape of an aloe's, and 



