SOME INTERESTING PECULIARITIES. 233 



whitish, and nearly triangular leaves, with green points. The 

 top of the floral spike is likewise marked by a couple of bracts; 

 but these are much smaller, and red-coloured, like the two 

 leaves of the calyx. The interval is occupied by bracts, which 

 diminish in size from the base to the top of the spike ; on a 

 level with each pair six flowers are inserted, three for each 

 bract. 



The flowers, thus arranged by whorls, present some inter- 

 esting peculiarities. The lower and upper show only their 

 reddish calices ; the middle, for the most part, display both 

 a calyx and a corolla, varying from blue to pale-rose, which 

 gives the plant a very peculiar appearance. In the under 

 flowers, the corolla has already fallen ; by separating the lips 

 of the calyx, you may catch sight of the tetrachaenium, that 

 is, the four-seeded fruit, which is developed at the bottom of 

 the tube. In the upper flowers, the corolla is not yet ex- 

 panded. It resembles a small deep-coloured globe ; you may 

 say an eye, a bull's-eye, which, from the depths of the calyx, 

 regards you with a piercing glance. Hence, perhaps, the 

 French name for this plant, prunelle, an eye. 



We often meet with a variety of self-heal with a white 

 corolla, green calyx, and pinnatifid leaves, a variety of which 

 some botanists have erroneously made a separate species, 

 under the name of Prunella alba. It is equally wrong, in our 

 opinion, to convert the large-flowered variety into a distinct 

 species, by taking as its specific character the lateral cleft of 

 the upper lip of the caly overlapping the middle cleft ; for 



