WILD FLOWERS RED 
nection in folk-lore, and that is its scientific name. 
Pedicularis is Latin for louse, and was applied to 
this species by farmers who, for many years, seemed 
thoroughly convinced that the Lousewort, as they 
disparagingly named it, was responsible for breed- 
ing a small insect that developed a skin disease 
among their sheep, which they concluded had surely 
fed upon its foliage. Several flowering stalks spring 
from the centre of a tuft of circular clustered leaves. 
They are stout, hairy, and sparingly leafy, and rise — 
from six to eighteen inches. The peculiar flowers 
are curiously arranged in a thick, leafy, terminal 
spike, and they develop spirally toward the green 
top. The corolla is two-lipped, with the upper one 
hooked or arched, and flattened like the bow of an 
Indian canoe, while the lower lip is much shorter, and 
has three lobes, the outer ones of which are flared. 
‘The colour varies from a light yellow to purplish red. 
The upper lip has two tiny, hair-like teeth at the apex, 
between which extends a fine pistil. Four stamens 
huddle beneath the hood of the upper lip. Sometimes 
the entire flower is yellow, and again the lower lip is 
yellow and the upper one shades into a deep purple. 
This peculiarity gives it the name of Beefsteak Plant. 
The tubular calyx is deeply notched on the under side 
and tapers to a point on top with two or three small 
scallops. The dark green fern-like leaves are oblong 
or lance-shaped, and graduate into slender stems. 
Their margins are deeply cut into small lobes, each 
of which is again notched and scalloped or toothed, 
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