= LIFE-HISTORY OF LITHUSPERMUM PURPUREO-CG@RULEUM. 75 
of propagation ; although in the first edition of the work Sir J. E. 
Smith remarks that most of the leafy stems throw out roots, and 
on that point is more correct than his successor. The poor, badly- 
coloured figure (HK. B. 117) is pp aneser in the 8rd edition by a 
barren horizontal shoot, which ver does not bear eno 
In the ‘ astm Flora’ ih deseription runs ‘‘ barren stems 
creeping,..... ootstock creeping,” without note on the’ manner 
in which the “ mocping? "is effecte 
These quotations show that this Gromwell is believed to have 
either a creeping he or prostrate creeping barren os ; and to 
produce fruit but rarely. I wish, by giving the result of my~ 
observations on its an in Scaeds to supply the acini ae to 
which I have drawn attention; and to record the facts that the 
roots do not creep; that fruits are ripened on every cyme, if not in 
every calyx; and that the barren shoots, which seldom spring from 
a flowering root, are primarily erect, then high arching, an 
ultimately root at the tip, often at a considerable distance from the 
parent; the young plants quickly becoming separated by the decay 
of the connecting links 
Lithospermum purpureo-ceruleum is at home in the warm borders 
BY : 
beech, whitebeam and hazel are frequent on the Mendips, nestling 
in hollows at the base of the hills or tiie the flank of some out- 
- lying ‘cha Sheltering amid the coarse herbage and tangling 
briars on the sunny fringes of these woods, seldom penetrating 
very fie tht the shade, nor yet venturing more than a yard or two 
into the open ground, the handsome dee eep blue flowers of our plant 
can be seen abundantly in many places at the beginning of May. 
The soil is merely fragments of limestone, leavened with a little 
loam, from which the roots can readily be disengaged. The root- 
stock is small, woody, gnarled and twisted, with comparatively 
large fibres or branchlets. Its position is more or less horizontal ; 
and producing shoots only at the apex, it lengthens annually to 
the extent of the width of the terminal bu 
At the early season when the flowers first open, the stems, 
_ barren or flowering, rarely exceed a foot in height. They are 
alike erect, and the inflorescence is compact and half-shrouded 
1 ct 
cyme produce fruit, one or at most two polished  Brignces Tike 
nuts being found in each fruiting calyx. These nuts are very 
persistent and conspicuous on the brown, withered, bat erect 
- stems, whic n seen the next spring suggest the idea of 
j eee oe poles with unusually large insulators; but on 
‘detach easily 
