Perennial ? — Flowers in June and July. 
Root tapering, fleshy, subdivided. Stem very short, branches 
from the root, from 3 to 6 inches. long, decumbent, simple, angular, 
leafy. Leaves alternate, doubly pinnatifid and notched: those from 
the root egg-shaped, undivided, crenate, recurved. Flowers axil- 
lary, mostly towards the summit of the branches. Calyx oblong, 
tubular, with 4 larger angles, and as many intermediate smaller 
ones ; the margin irregularly 5-cleft, the segments crenate, and 
often leafy. Corolla of a uniform rose colour, rather large and 
showy, much more slender than the calvx ; tube compressed : up- 
per lip with a little tooth on each side; lower lip 3-lobed, the 
middle lobe rather the smallest. Filaments thread-shaped, the two 
longer ones hairy towarcis the top. Capsule smooth, involved in 
the calyx. Seeds roundish, compressed, with a membranous 
border. 
This is a very pretty little plant, and is found wild, in ir.o'st 
pastures and heaths, and also in woods, not only in Britain, but in 
many other parts of Europe, and also in .‘Siberia. It occurs some- 
times with a white flower; and a very singular variety was found 
in 1808, near Dunrobin Castle, in Sutherland, North Britain, by 
the Marquis of Stafford, with a solitary flower, which, instead 
of its proper ringent form, with 2 long and 2 shorter stamens, had 
a salver-shaped regular corolla, with 6 stamens, 4 of which were 
longer than the other 2. Sir W. J. Hooker, and W. Borker, 
Esq. found one resembling it in the same place in 1809. See 
Trans, of Linn. Soc. v. x. p. 227. 
The expressed juice, or a decoction of this plant, has been used 
with advantage as an injection for sinuous ulcers. It is said, that 
if the healthiest flock of sheep be fed with it, they become scabby 
and scurfy in a short time; the wool will become loose, and they 
will be over-run with vermin. If this effect ready follows, it is 
more probably owing to the poverty of’ the soil where the plants 
grow, than to anv particular quality in the plants themselves. See 
Withering’s Dot. Arr. and Ligutfoot’s FL Scot. 
“ Flowers, lovely flowers! ye are to me 
Most clear and precious things; 
Nature’s soft pencil over ye 
Its brightest colouring flings. 
Ye seem to mo, though blooming hero, 
Bright ladings of another sphere. — 
A fairy hand ! apart, alone, 
A bright and beauteous race ! 
Blooming wherever ye are sown. 
And sown in every place : 
Filling the air with fragraucy. 
Wherever ye may smiling lie. 
li lightening alike the cultured scene. 
And the untvodden rock ; 
Blooming the lava’s paths between, 
tinning the thunder-shock ; 
Glowing, unseard, beneath the sun, 
Unchillcd within ttie forest lone.” 
Mary Ann Browne. 
