202 BOEAGINACEJE. 



plant that some people cannot believe that it was really wild 

 there ; but as no garden was near, we take the benefit of the 

 doubt, and have faith in its being an orthodox native. The 

 spikes are terminal and one-sided, the flowers blue, and the 

 leaves lance-shaped and very rough. 



The Evergreen Alkanet (A. sempervirens, Plate XIL, fig. 14), 

 Edward found in Shropshire, and rejoiced, believing it to be a 

 garden plant. He was not far wrong, for it is much cultivated 

 in old-fashioned gardens, and its brilliant flowers entitle it to 

 notice. It is rare as a wild plant, though found pretty plenti- 

 fully in Shropshire and Warwickshire. 



The common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale, fig. 11), the 

 next family of the Borages, is very abundant in Wiltshire. 

 The plant grows three feet high, and the tube-shaped flowers 

 are arranged in forked drooping clusters. Near Heystesbury 

 the flowers are white, but about Brixton Deverill they are lilac. 

 The leaves are large, and of a broad lance-shape. The ro^t is / 

 used by the villagers as a medicine, iktt &jt4t*~*- ^%^^tc 



The Tuberous Comfrey (S. tuberosum), 1ms yellowish flowers, 

 and is a slighter plant. It is rare except in Scotland. 



The common Borage (Borago officinalis, Plate XIL, fig. 13), 

 is a very handsome plant. Its drooping clusters of brilliant 

 blue flowers, with their white centre and black stamens, plenti- 

 fully adorn the cliffs at East Looe, contrasting with the yellow, 

 white, and pink plants which I have already described. It 

 grows elsewhere on rocks and waste places ; but I have never 

 seen its beauty so striking as Fanny describes it on those Cornish 

 cliffs. It used to be cultivated for the sake of its flowers, which 

 form an ingredient in the drink called " cool tankard," and it 

 still lingers in old-fashioned gardens. It has been discovered 

 by an eminent chemist that a decoction of the leaves of this 

 plant evaporated deposit crystals both needle-shaped and cube- 

 shaped, the former being of nitre, the latter of sea salt. This 

 circumstance is mentioned in a little monthly volume entitled 

 "Wild Flowers of the Year," and published by the Tract 



