258 Blue to Purple Flowers 



that fringed the streams? It is a very fragile little blos- 

 som, and as it resents being picked to the extent of imme- 

 diately shrivelling up and dying, travellers had better be 

 content to admire it where it flourishes in the moist low- 

 lying meadows, and refrain from all attempts to gather it. 

 This " little sister of the stately blue Flag " only blooms 

 for a single day, and each morning new buds open to re- 

 place the fallen petals of yesterday. Its flowers consist 

 of six translucent purplish-blue segments, veined with a 

 darker hue and tipped by a bristle from a notch. These 

 grow on thread-like stalks between two very long narrow 

 bracts, the lower one of which is usually twice as long as 

 the upper one. In the centre of each blossom is a small 

 patch of yellow, and the style, which is long and protruding, 

 is tipped by a conspicuous three-cleft stigma. 



The name Blue-eyed Grass is most appropriate to this 

 plant, for its leaves are certainly quite grass-like, being long 

 and slender, and nearly all spring up from the densely 

 tufted base, together with the stems, which latter are flat- 

 tened on both sides. The flowers are very like soft pur- 

 plish-blue eyes with their dilated yellow " pupils," as they 



" Gently gaze toward the sky, 

 Answering the azure blue on high." 



Another poet sings thus of the Blue-eyed Grass : 



" Blue-eyed grass in the meadow, 



And yarrow blooms on the hill, 

 Cat-tails that rustle and whisper, 

 And winds that are never still; 



" Blue-eyed grass in the meadow, 



A linnet'' s nest near by, 

 Blackbirds carolling clearly 



Somewhere between earth and sky. 



