HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



dainty flower bears transplanting and thrives in our city 

 gardens, where I have made its acquaintance. 



Beggar's Lice. Stickseed 



Lappula virginiana.. — Family, Borage. Color, pale blue, near- 

 ly white. Calyx, tubular, deeply 5-cleft. Corolla, salver-form. 

 Fruit, 4 nutlets, each becoming a sort of bur, covered with prickles, 

 by which means the seeds are caught in fleece of sheep or coats 

 of animals and disseminated. Flowers, insignificant, on short 

 pedicels, clustered in loose panicles. 



Dry woods, thickets, and roadsides, Maine to Minnesota, 

 south to the Gulf. 



Scorpion Grass. True Forget-me-not 



Myosbtis scorptoides. — Family, Borage. Color, light blue with 

 yellow eye. Calyx, tubular. Corolla, salver-form, the lobes open 

 and spreading. Leaves, oblong or lance - shape, entire, sessile, 

 on slender, weak stems, which are loosely branched, rooting at 

 the lower joints. 



Cultivated and sometimes found wild, escaped. 



M. lixa,. — Color, blue. Flowers, in very loose racemes. Leaves, 

 oblong or lance-shaped, softly hairy. June and July. 



Marshes, banks of small streams. Every one knows the 

 little forget-me-nots, and where to find them in the wet, grassy 

 banks of brooks. They nestle modestly among mosses and 

 galiums, peeping with mild eyes around clumps of onoclea 

 fern. The flowers bloom in long, thin, leafless spikes. The 

 stems and leaves, when rubbed upward, are somewhat 

 rough. 



Those who have seen the blue forget-me-not in shady, wet 

 places in Europe, with its large, bright blue corolla and its 

 full spike of blossoms, will say that we do not know this 

 flower. Our blossoms are few and scanty, buds and fruit 

 occupying the most of the flowering raceme. 



Virginian Cowslip. Bluebells. Lungwort 



Mertensia. <virginica,. — Family, Borage. Color, light blue. Calyx, 

 short, deeply 5-parted. Corolla, trumpet-shaped, about 1 inch 

 long. Stamens, 5. Flowers, in loose panicles or clusters, the 

 lower ones with leafy bracts, all on slender pedicels, often droop- 

 ing. Stem, pale green, erect, 1 to 2 feet high. Leaves, alternate, 

 entire, quite veiny. April and May. 



A showy flower, pinkish in bud, purplish blue when in full 



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