WILD FLOWERS red 



nection in folk-lore, and that is its scientific name. 

 Pedicularis is Latin for louse, and was applied to 

 this species by farmers who, for many years, seemed 

 thoroughly convinced that the Lousewort, as they 

 disparagingly named it, was responsible for breed- 

 ing a small insect that developed a skin disease 

 among their sheep, which they concluded had surely 

 fed upon its foliage. Several flowering stalks spring 

 from the centre of a tuft of circular clustered leaves. 

 They are stout, hairy, and sparingly leafy, and rise 

 from six to eighteen inches. The peculiar flowers 

 are curiously arranged in a thick, leafy, terminal 

 spike, and they develop spirally toward the green 

 top. The corolla is two-lipped, with the upper one 

 hooked or arched, and flattened like the bow of an 

 Indian canoe, while the lower lip is much shorter, and 

 has three lobes, the outer ones of which are flared. 

 The colour varies from a light yellow to purplish red. 

 The upper lip has two tiny, hair-like teeth at the apex, 

 between which extends a fine pistil. Four stamens 

 huddle beneath the hood of the upper lip. Sometimes 

 the entire flower is yellow, and again the lower lip is 

 yellow and the upper one shades into a deep purple. 

 This peculiarity gives it the name of Beefsteak Plant. 

 The tubular calyx is deeply notched on the under side 

 and tapers to a point on top with two or three small 

 scallops. The dark green fern-like leaves are oblong 

 or lance-shaped, and graduate into slender stems. 

 Their margins are deeply cut into small lobes, each 

 of which is again notched and scalloped or toothed, 



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