30 Borage. 



ordinary size, and produce a close spike of flowers, sometimes 

 two feet in length. This, we believe, is the only species indi- 

 genous to the northern part of the United States, which is 

 worth the trouble of reclaiming, the others being comparatively 

 mean looking plants. The Epilobiums, as well as most, if 

 not all the Evening Primrose tribe, have few good qualities 

 besides their appearance, possessing no useful properties of 

 any consequence. 



BORAGO OFFICINALIS— BORAGE. 



Natural Class, Dicotyledones ; Order, Boraginese. Liunaean Class, Pentau- 

 dria ; Order, Monogynia. Generic Distinctions :— calyx, in five deep 

 segments; corolla, rotate; tube, very short; throat, with short, erect, 

 emarginate scales ; stamens, exserted ; filaments, bifid, the inner fork 

 bearing the anther. 



B. Officinalis. (L.) Lower leaves, obovate, obtuse, attenuated below ; seg- 

 ments of the corolla, ovate, acute, flat, spreading ; grows in waste places 

 and rubbish ; flowers, blue. 



This genus forms the type of the natural order Boragineee. 

 The species represented in the engraving is the only one much 

 known in this part of this country, though nearly all are inhabi- 

 tants of temperate climates. Their number appears to be 

 much smaller in America than in Europe. Borage is possessed 

 of some useful qualities. It abounds in mucilage, and is ■/ 

 sometimes cultivated for the sake of the leaves and young 

 shoots, which are boiled as < greens' in the spring, but are far 

 inferior for that purpose either to those of the Dandelion, or 

 the Asclepias. It also gives a coolness to liquids in which it is 

 steeped, and for that reason as Main says in his " Hortus 

 Dietetica," an odd book, with an odd title, " the flowers are 

 required in the composition of cool-tanTcard, a favorite bever- 

 age amongst aldermen in warm weather." The flowers undergo 

 a remarkable change of color. At their first appearance, the 

 petals are of a bright red color, which becomes a briUiant 

 blue when they are fuUy expanded. This phenomenon is 

 probably caused by the loss of some acid principle. To those 

 who are fond of tracing analogies between the higher and 



