BORAGINE*. 



581 



Perennial with rather large flowers. Limb of the corolla 

 flat 2. Wood M. 



Annual or biennial, with small flowers. Limb of the 



corolla often concave 3. Field M. 



Pedicels not above a line long, usually shorter than the 

 calyx. Annuals. 



Stem ascending or branched from the base. Calyx 



usually open after flowering. Corolla always blue . 4. TZarly M. 



Stem erect, simple at the base. Calyx always closed 

 after flowering. Corolla at first yellow, afterwards 

 blue 5. Changing M. 



Some exotic species are cultivated in our flower- gardens, together 

 with varieties of the water M., the wood M., and the early M. 



1. Water Myosote. Myosotis palustris, With. (Fig. 692.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1973. Forget-me-not.) 



Perennial stock usually slightly creep- 

 ing ; the stems weak, ascending, from 6 

 to 18 inches high, often nearly glabrous, 

 but sometimes rather thickly clothed 

 with spreading hairs. Leaves glabrous 

 or with appressed hairs. Flowers of a 

 bright clear blue, with a yellow eye, 

 very variable in size, but usually rather 

 large for the genus. Calyx never di- 

 vided below the middle, whilst in all 

 other British species it is deeply cleft. 



In wet ditches, and by the sides of 

 streams, in Europe, Russian Asia, and 

 northern America, extending into the 

 Arctic Circle. Abundant in Britain. 

 Fl. the whole summer. Modern botanists 

 divide it into three : the true Forget-me- 

 not, which is often nearly glabrous, with a broad flat corolla, and short 

 broad teeth to the calyx ; M. repens (Eng. Bot. Suppl. t. 2703), which 

 is more hairy, with narrower lobes to the calyx, reaching to about the 

 middle ; and M. ccespitosa (Eng. Bot. Suppl. t. 2661), with a smaller 

 corolla, with the limb often slightly concave : the first is more com- 

 mon in the south, the last in the north, but they all three run so 

 much one into another as not to be distinguishable with certainty- 

 even as varieties. 



Fig. 692. 



