Wild Flowers as They Grow 



the shape of its leaves), and its botanical name, 

 Myosotis, is just the Latin rendering of this name — 

 mouse-ear. The original EngUsh Forget-me-not, as 

 some say, was the Uttle blue veronica, the speedwell, 

 whose petals are so fugitive and whose beauty is so 

 transient, or, as others assert, the ground pine or 

 yellow bugle, for the very unromantic reason that 

 medicine made from it was so terribly nasty that 

 the taste was quite unforgettable. However, on the 

 Continent the plant seems long to have had an 

 equivalent name to the one it now bears here, and 

 so, early last century, we happily fell into hne, and 

 it is now the only recognised " Forget-me-not." 



There are five different varieties of myosotes or 

 scorpion grasses — the water, wood, field, early 

 and changing myosotes — growing wild in this 

 country, and most of them are in turn hailed as the 

 Forget-me-not, for the distinction between them is 

 not very marked, but the one in our picture, the 

 Water or Marsh Forget-me-not, is generally con- 

 sidered the typical one. 



lOO 



