372 VERVAIN. 



right, tapering, purplish, obsoletely tetragonal, hard, rough at 

 the angles with short prickly hairs, simple, or dividing into op- 

 posite slender branches, and attain the height of a foot or eighteen 

 inches. The leaves are opposite, shortly petiolate, ovate-oblong, 

 or lanceolate, pinnatifid, of a dull green colour, rough with 

 short scattered hairs ; the uppermost sometimes trifid or simple ; 

 the segments incised obtuse, the terminal one the largest. The 

 flowers are small, sessile, with a short acute bractea at the base 

 of each, and are disposed in filiform somewhat paniculate spikes. 

 The calyx is tubular, angular, pubescent, permanent, with five 

 teeth, one of them truncate and shorter than the rest. The 

 corolla is funnel-shaped, with an incurved tube, and a spreading 

 limb divided into five short, rather unequal rounded lobes of a 

 pale or whitish violet colour. The stamens are four, didynamous, 

 included, with very short filaments tipped with roundish anthers. 

 The germen is small, quadrangular, supporting a filiform style 

 terminated by an obtuse stigma. The fruit consists of four ob- 

 long concrete nuts, brownish, convex, and reticulated in front, 

 white and nearly plane at the back, inclosed at first in a thin 

 membrane, which fades at the maturity of the seed. Plate 44, 

 fig. 3, (a) lower leaf; (b) entire flower ; (c) calyx and bractea ; 

 (d) corolla opened to show the stamens ; (e) pistil ; (/) fruit, 

 natural size ; (g) the same, magnified ; (h) nuts. 



Vervain is not uncommon in England by road sides and in 

 waste ground, but it was probably introduced at some remote 

 period, as it is seldom found at any great distance from houses 

 and villages. It is rare in Scotland, and has not been found in 

 Ireland. It flowers in July and August. 



The name Verbena is said by Theis to be derived from the 

 Celtic ferfaen. Some have fancifully considered it a corrup- 

 tion of Veneris vena; and others of herbena, this term being ap- 

 plied by the Romans to several plants, as Laurel, Olive, Myrtle, 

 &c, used to adorn the altars. Hence Virgil, 



" Verbenasque adole pingues et mascula thura."— Eel viii. v. 65. 

 and Terence in Andria, 



" Ex ara hac sume Verbenas tibi." 



In Virgil's 4th Georgic, however, Verbena is used to signify a 

 distinct plant. 



