From Blue to Purple 



Handsomest of all is the Virginia cowslip." And yet Robinson 

 never saw the alluvial meadows in the Ohio Valley blued with 

 lovely masses of the plant in April. 



A great variety of insects visit this blossom, which, being 

 tubular, conducts them straight to the ample feast ; but not until 

 they have deposited some pollen brought from another flower on 

 the' stigma in their way. The anthers are too widely sepiarated 

 from the stigma to make self-fertilization likely. Occasionally 

 one finds the cowslips perforated by clever bumblebees. As 

 only the females, which are able to sip far deeper cups, are flying 

 when they bloom, they must be either too mischievous or too 

 lazy to drain them in the legitimate manner. Butterflies have 

 only to stand on a flower, not to enter it, in order to sip nectar 

 from the four glands that secrete it abundantly. 



Forget-me-not; Mouse-ear; Scorpion Grass; 

 Snake Grass; Love Me 



{Myosotis paliisfris) Borage family 



Flowers — Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye ; flat, 5- 

 lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often i -sided racemes. 

 Caly.x 5-cleft ; the lobes narrow, spreading, erect, and open 

 in fruit ; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube ; style thread- 

 like ; ovary 4-celled. Stem: Low, branching, leafy, slender, 

 hairy, partially reclining. Leaves: (A^roso/Zs = mouse-ear) 

 oblong, alternate, seated on stem, hairy. Fruit: Nutlets, 

 angled and keeled on inner side. 



Preferred Habitat — Escaped from gardens to brooksides, marshes, 

 and low meadows. 



Floioeriug Season — May — ^J uly . 



Distriluition — Native of Europe and Asia, now rapidly spreading 

 from Nova Scotia southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 

 and beyond. 



How rare a color blue must have been originally among our 

 flora is evident from the majority of blue and purple flowers 

 that, although now abundant here and so perfectly at home, are 

 really cjuite recent immigrants from Europe and Asia. But our 

 dryer, hotter climate never brings to the perfection attained in 

 England 



" The sweet forget-me-nots 

 That grow for happy lovers." 



Tennyson thus ignores the melancholy association of the 

 flower in the popular legend which tells how a lover, when trying 



37 



