284 Blue to Purple Flowers 



base on a line with the stamens. The nutlets are dull and 

 with obtuse angles, they are wrinkled at maturity. This 

 plant grows in moist places. 



DRAGON HEAD 



Draco cephalum parviflorum. Mint Family 



Stems: erect, leafy. Leaves: ovate-lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed. 

 Flowers: in whorls, crowded in a terminal spike. 



The leafy erect stems of this plant are crowned with dense 

 whorled spikes of small purple-blue flowers, the upper lip of 

 the small slender corolla- is arched and notched, the lower 

 one being three-cleft, with the large middle lobe again two- 

 cleft or notched at the end. The leaves are long-shaped and 

 very sharply toothed, the Ipwer ones being petioled and the 

 upper sessile. 



HEART OF THE EARTH 



Prunella vulgaris. Mint Family 



Stems: numerous, slender, erect or procumbent, usually simple. 

 Leaves: thin, ovate or oblong, obtuse, entire or crenate. Flowers: in 

 dense, bracted, terminal and axillary spikes; calyx cylindraceous, with 

 hirsute teeth; corolla-tube inflated, bilabiate, the upper lip entire, 

 arched, the lower lip spreading, three-lobed. 



The dense purple spikes of the Prunella are very common 

 beside alpine streams and in the grassy meadows. This 

 plant, which was called Prunella by Linnaeus, is more sig- 

 nificantly named Brunella, because it is supposed to contain 

 a remedy for die Braune, or the quinsy, and hence some 

 ancient German botanist originally called it Brnnellen. 



It is not an attractive flower, for its elongated spikes, cov- 

 ered with dark reddish bracts, have usually only a few scat- 

 tered blossoms on them, and even these are insignificant. 



