82 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



The finding of this beautiful and attractive species 

 clearly made a deep impression on the minds of the 

 early botanists, for one after another Thomas Johnson, 

 Will Cole, Christopher Merrett, John Ray dwell on 

 Goodyer's discovery. The plant is unknown in 

 England except in the New Forest and in the Isle of 

 Wight, and very sparingly in one or two other localities. 

 In the neighbourhood of Beaulieu Abbey, especially in 

 the woods and copses that skirt the river, it is common, 

 and must often in early spring have attracted the notice 

 of the good monks, who doubtless made use of it in 

 medicinal preparations. It is curious to notice how 

 the flower changes colour in the course of its career. In 

 bud it is of a reddish hue ; as the petals open they be- 

 come violet, then ultramarine blue, and at length fade 

 slowly into a dull purple. The plant has been variously 

 named, but the early botanists mostly call it the bugloss- 

 cowslip or the long-leaved sage of Jerusalem. How 

 the name " Jerusalem " came to be connected with the 

 plant is unknown, but it evidently had some sacred 

 associations, and the children of the New Forest call it 

 to this day " Joseph and Mary." Its other name, lung- 

 wort (Pulmonaria), had reference, of course, to its use 

 in herbalism, the spotted leaves of the plant being, 

 according to the accepted " doctrine of signatures," 

 a clear indication of its purpose in the divine 

 economy. 



Another rare Forest plant is the stately Gladiolus, 

 illyricus, Koch, only discovered in the year 1856, and 

 found nowhere else in England. Its tall and graceful 

 scapes of purple flowers shoot up among the thick 

 bracken in several glades of the Forest about the middle 

 of July. Authorities differ as to the claims of the 



