68 



THE COLOURS OF FLOWERS. 



family with profoundly modified flowers (Fig. 25), most 

 of which are very specially adapted to very exceptional 

 modes of insect fertilisation. The Veronicas alone 

 among our English genera are simply blue, with 

 white or pink lines ; the others are mostly spotted or 

 dappled. AntirrJiimim majus is purple, sometimes 

 crimson or white, with the curiously closed throat a 

 bright yellow. Linaria cymbalaria is blue or lilac, 

 with white patches, and the palate a delicate primrose. 

 Z. spuria is yellow, with a purple throat. L. minor is 

 purple, with a white lower lip and yellow palate. 



Fig. 25.— Flower of toad flax (^Linaria vulgaris), with corolla prolonged into a 

 honey-bearing spur ; yellow, with orange palate. 



The very strange flowers of Scrophiilaria have a 

 curious, indescribable mixture of brown, green, dingy 

 purple, and buff. Sibthorpia is pink, with the two 

 smaller lobes of the corolla yellow. Digitalis pur- 

 picrea, the foxglove, is purple, spotted with red and 

 white. Euphrasia, eye-bright, is white or lilac, with 

 purple veins, and the middle lobe of the lower lip 

 yellow. Melampynmi arvense is red, with pink lips 

 and a purple throat. Description, indeed, is quite in- 

 adequate to convey any sufficient notion of the inti- 

 mate intermixture of hues in most scrophularineous 



