BORAGE FATMII.V 



343 



■pedicels in long, slender, leafless clusters, with a solitar)' flower 

 some distance below them in the axil of the uppermost leaf ; 

 calyx with hooked bristles. — Dry banks ; common. On its first 

 appearance, in April, the flowers are buried among the leaves ; 

 but the stems finally lengthen into racemes, and as the season 

 advances the whole plant dries up and disappears. ^Fl. April — 

 July. Annual. 



S. M. versicolor (Parti- 

 coloured Scorpion-gras.s). — 

 A very distinct species, less 

 than a foot high ; stem 

 leafy below, naked above ; 

 leaves sessile, linear-oblong, 

 sub - acute ; flowers very 

 minute, in clusters, on long, 

 leafless stalks, tightly coiled 

 up, when in bud, in the 

 scorpioid manner which 

 gives these plants the name 

 of Scorpion-grass, at first 

 pale yellow, afterwards 

 blue. — Fields and banks ; 

 pommon. — Fl. April — June. 

 Annual. 



I O. L I T H O S P E R JI U iM 



(Gromwell). — Herbs, some- 

 times shrubby, with flowers 

 in leafy clusters ; calyx 

 deeply 5-cleft ; corolla 

 funnel - shaped, its throat 

 naked, or with 5 minute 

 scales ; stamens included ; 

 nutlets stony. (Name from 

 the Greek Hthos, a stone, spenna seed, from its hard nutlets.) 



1. L. purpi'ireo-ccsrideum (Purple Gromwell), wnth prostrate, 

 barren stems, and erect flowering ones, i — 2 feet high, with large, 

 bright, blue-purple floiccrs, occurs rarely in woods on chalky or 

 lim'estone soil, chiefly in the south.— Fl. Alay— July. Perennial 



2. L. offldndle (Common Gromwell, or Grey Millet). — Dis- 

 tinguished' by its erect stems, i— j feet high, much branched 

 towards the summit, and generally growing 5 or 6 from the same 

 root; oblong, acute, sessile leaves, bristly above, hairy beneath; 

 small yellowish white flowers ; and, above all, by its highly polished 



l.TTHOSP^RMUM OFF1C1.M,\l£ 

 iConijiiou Grp}j:l^'cii, or G>cy Milht). 



