The Viper's Bugloss 



had entered into possession of the bareness and 

 given a new beauty, and as the sun blazed down 

 upon it the old herbalist's happy epithet flashed 

 into memory down two and a half centuries. It is 

 indeed "a most gallant herb of the Sun"— in its 

 upright, stately bearing; in its gay colouring of 

 blues and pinks and purples, and above all in the 

 armour with which it equips itself. 



At the very outset this armour makes itself 

 reahsed (does it not belong to the family of the 

 BoraginecB, whose very name implies the armoured ?), 

 for the whole plant — the strong, sturdy stem, the 

 great spreading tuft of root-leaves lying flat upon 

 the ground, the finer, shghter leaves that rise in a 

 spiral up the stem, even the very flowers themselves 

 — is clothed with a coating of hairs so sharp and 

 stiffened as to be almost prickly and certainly dis- 

 agreeable to handle. On the stems they can be 

 seen as white bristles each rising from a single 

 dark gland ; under a lens these glands show very 



distinctly as glistening knobs. On the leaves the 



log 



