126 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



sources, the one truly English, the other as 

 a mere herbalist's translation of the Greek 

 lysimachia. The woodland loosestrife has 

 small yellow flowers, of a regular and simple 

 sort ; and it is by family a primrose, though 

 it hardly looks much like one to a casual 

 observer. I have picked it now, however, 

 for comparison with this other allied plant, 

 the common little pimpernel, whose pretty 

 bright red blossoms are familiar friends in 

 every cornfield and waste patch of garden. 

 The two plants are very interesting in their 

 way, as illustrating a curious feature of evo- 

 lution ; and they are interesting, too, as 

 showing the sort of errors into which people 

 were constantly led before the rise of evolu- 

 tionism by the old artificial way of regarding 

 the relationships between plants and animals. 

 In all the books about botany, even, I 

 believe, to the present day, you will find the 

 woodland loosestrife classed as a species of 

 the genus Lysimachia, while the pimpernel is 

 classed as a species of the genus Anagallis. 



