125 



the Northren Provinces of France, as well as the Southern 

 parts of England, it is considered by the ignorant and super- 

 stitious to have great power in keeping off diseases from 

 themselves and danger from their cattle, and what is of more 

 importance, they think that a sprig of the plant given to a 

 lover will rivet his heart upon the fair giver. 



" There are fairer flowers that bloom on the lea, 



And give out their fragrant scent to the gale ; 



But the Vervain, with charmed leaf, shall be, 



The plant of our choosing, though scentless and pale. 

 " For, wrapped in the veil of thy lowly flower, 

 They say that a powerful influence dwells. 

 And that, duly culled in the star-bright hour, 

 Thou bindest the heart by thy powerful spells." S. Waring. 



BARTSIA. BARTSIA. 



RED BARTSIA. Bartsia odontites. 

 Plate 9, fig. 11. 



A very pretty, branched, upright plant, often found in corn- 

 fields, and on the chalky hillocks and neglected quarries of the 

 South of England ; it grows a foot or more high, and flowers, 

 like most of this class, in the latter part of Summer. The 

 stems are square. Leaves lance-shaped, serrated, and in pairs. 

 Flowers turning all the same way, ringent, purple, small, with 

 large, yellow, curious stamens. Calyx four-cleft. 



O. S. Yellow Viscid Bartsia and Alpine Bartsia both of them rare. 



EYE-BRIGHT. EUPHRASIA. 

 COMMON EYE-BRIGHT. Euphrasia officinalis. 



Plate 9, fig. 12. 



A humble growing plant, abundant equally on the Lowland 

 heath and the Highland pasture, varying much in size, from a 

 single flower and a simple stem, scarcely an inch in height, to 

 a branched herb of many inches. The flowers are sessile, 

 crowded towards the upper part of the stem ; two-lipped, the 

 upper lip notched, the lower three-lobed, each lobe notched 

 at the end, all of the most delicate white, striped with purple. 

 The leaves are opposite, small, ovate, hairy, with a few large 

 notches on their edges. Anthers with two curious projections 

 like spurs on the lower part of them, which vary much in 

 length and size. It was used formerly to make an ointment 



