XVII 



ON FORGET-ME-NOTS (MYOSOTIS) 



THE Forget-me-not plays so useful, if modest, a 

 part in the flower garden, that we hardly need the 

 romantic story of the way in which it won its popular 

 name to commend it to us. And yet, having a tinge 

 of sentiment left in us still, we are willing to be in- 

 fluenced mildly by the pathetic recital of the accidental 

 drowning of the lover, and his last despairing appeal 

 to his lass to hold him in remembrance as he flung her 

 a flower and was swept away by the water. We hope 

 that she did not forget him, but named her second boy 

 after him when she had married the other man, and 

 taught him to associate Myosotises with his bulbs in the 

 spring bedding. 



It is fitting that there should be water and water 

 other than the tribute of our tears in the story of the 

 christening of the Forget-me-not, for it is a plant of 

 marshy places. Its specific name, palustris, indicates 

 this, for paludal or palustral objects are those of the 

 marshes (palus, a marsh). This contains a practical hint 

 for us ; it suggests that we should grow our Forget-me- 

 nots in cool, moist places. Assuredly they do well there, 

 but, happily for us, there are Alpine kinds suitable for 

 cultivation in spots that are normally dry in summer. 

 We need not put them in their flowering positions till 

 autumn ; and as they bloom in spring, they have all the 

 moist season of the year in which to do their best for us. 



