112 PROSERPINA. 



is above described with attention, vol. i., p. 75, as an ex- 

 ample of precision in flower- form, we may as well re- 

 tain it in our list here. It will be therefore our twent} r - 

 iirst variety, it is London's fifty-ninth and last. He 

 translates ( polita ' simply 'polished,' which is nonsense. 

 I can think of nothing to call it but 'dainty,' and will 

 leave it at present unchristened. 



5. Lastly. I can't think why I omitted Y. Hum if lisa, 

 S. 979, which seems to be quite one of the most beauti- 

 ful of the family a mountain flower also, and one which 

 I ought to find here; but hitherto I know only among 

 the mantlings of the ground, Y. thyrnifolia and offici- 

 nalis. All these, however, agree in the extreme pretti- 

 ness and grace of their crowded leafage, the officinalis, 

 of which the leaves are shown much too coarsely serrated 

 in S. 984, forming carpets of finished embroidery which 

 I have never yet rightly examined, because I mistook 

 them for St. John's wort. They are of a beautiful 

 pointed oval form, serrated so finely that they seem 

 smooth in distant effect, and covered with equally invisi- 

 ble hairs, which seem to collect towards the edge in the 

 variety Hirsuta, S. 985. 



For the present, I should like the reader to group the 

 three flowers, S. 979, 984, 985, under the general name 

 of Humifusa, and to distinguish them by a third epithet, 

 which I allow myself when in difficulties, thus: 



Y. Humifusa, caerulea, the beautiful blue one, which 

 resembles Spicata. 



