CORNFIELD FLOWERS 



163 



taken for deformed specimens of the larger kind. Pansies 

 are a form of violets, unless we choose to say that violets 

 are a form of pansies ; and these ill-developed blossoms of 

 the small field pansy have a suggestive likeness to the 

 unpetalled blossoms of the sweet violet, which produce the 

 seed. As the cornfield pansy recalls the widely different 

 scenes where the mountain heart's-ease blooms on the lofty 

 turf, so the little blue scorpion-grass suggests the forget- 

 me-not by the June rivers. The 

 scorpion-grass is plainly a kind of 

 forget-me-not ; but it is pinched 

 and almost minute in growth, to 

 suit the more arid conditions of the 

 sandy or chalky cornfields where 

 it grows. The whole growth is 

 sparer, the blossoms are smaller, 

 and of a less full and limpid blue, 

 and the leaves and stem are 

 covered with the dry bristly down 

 which so often helps to protect 

 plants growing in hot, dry situations 

 from the thirsty beams of the sun, 

 by checking too free transpiration 

 through the vegetable pores. 



Venus's comb and Venus's looking-glass are a dainty 

 couple of cornfield flowers often found not apart on chalky 

 soils. Venus's comb is one of the chervils and cow-parsley 

 tribe, and has the typical finely cut leaves and unusually 

 small clusters of white blossoms. These expand on fruiting 

 into a bunch of long-pointed seed-vessels like the teeth of a 

 comb ; while, when regarded separately, they have given 

 the little plant its other name of shepherd's needle. Venus's 

 looking-glass is more fancifully entitled ; for a name which 



