336 THE CAMPAKTJIiA FAMILY. 



A numerous genus, widely spread over the globe, and yet wanting lu the 

 greater part of the continent of Europe and northern Asia. Several North 

 American species, with brihiant scarlet or purple flowers, as well as Cape or 

 AustraUan ones with blue flowers, are much cultivated in our gardens. 



Aquatic plant. Flowers drooping 1. Water L. 



Heath plant. Flowers erect 2. Acrid L. 



1. VtTater Iiobelia. Iiobelia Dortmanni, Lmn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t.l40.) 



An aquatic perennial, with tufts of nearly cylindrical, hollow, radical 

 leaves, 1 to 2 inches long, forming a dense green carpet at tlie bottom of the 

 water, each tuft proceeding from a small thick stock, with filiform creeping 

 runners. Flowering-stems erect and simple, rising about 6 or 8 inches 

 above the surface of the water, almost leafless. Flowers pale blue, 6 or 7 

 lines long, drooping, in a simple, loose terminal raceme. 



In the shallow parts of the lakes of northern Europe and America. Com- 

 mon in the lakes of Scotland and Ireland, and, in the west of Great Britain, 

 descending as far south as Shropshire and South Wales. FL summer. 



2. Acrid Iiobelia. Lobelia iirens, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 953.) 



Eootstock perennial, shortly creeping, with obovate or oblong radical 

 leaves. Stems simple or shghtly branched, erect, 1 to li feet high, bearing 

 in the lower half lanceolate, shghtly toothed leaves, and in the upper part a 

 long slender raceme of erect, purphsh-blue flowers, about the size of those 

 of the water L. 



In moist heaths, in western Europe, from Andalusia to western and cen- 

 tral France. In Britain, only on a common near Asmuister in Devon, 

 where it has been fast disappearing m consequence of enclosures, and will 

 probably soon have to be expunged from our Flora. Fl. end of summer and 

 autumn. 



II. JASZONE. JASIONE. 



Flowers blue, in small, terminal, hemispherical heads, surrounded by an 

 involucre of several bracts. Calyx reduced to 5 very narrow, slender lobes. 

 CoroUa regular, deeply divided into 5 narrow segments. Anthers imited at 

 the base into a ring round the long club-shaped style. 



Besides our British species, the genus contains two or three nearly allied 

 perennials, chiefly from the mountains of central and soutliem Europe and 

 western Asia. The flower-heads of this genus show the nearest approach 

 to Composites, from which however the many-seeded capsules at once dis- 

 tinguish it. 



1. Sheep's-bit Jasione. Jasione montana, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 882. Sheep's-bit.) 

 Boot annual or biennial, bearing in the latter case tufts of radical leaves ^ 

 which live through the winter. Stems sometimes short and decumbent or 

 ascending, sometimes nearly erect, a foot high, with a few spreading branches. 

 Leaves linear or lanceolate, waved on the edges, and more or less hairy. 

 Flower-heads, in the Britisli variety, about half an meh diameter, on long 



