﻿( runners J long and slender. Leaves inversely egg-shaped, some- 

 what scolloped, veiny; the lower ones tapering into footstalks; 

 the upper ones sessile, nearly entire ; those accompanying ihe 

 flowers becoming gradually smaller and shorter as they approach 

 the top, often purplish. Flowers in whorls, from the axils of the 

 leaves. Segments of the calyx hairy. Corolla blue, sometimes 

 white or flesh-coloured, hairy on the outside ; lower lip 4-cleft. 

 The white flowered variety is said to abound in the Isle of Wight. 

 In dry mountainous situations the plant becomes somewhat hairy. 



Common Bugle has been considered by the old writers as an 

 excellent vulnerary, both internally and externally; hence the 

 French had this expression : Those who have Bugle, and Sanicle, 

 need no surgeon. — The Rev. R. Walker observes, in his Flora 

 of Oxfordshire, that almost any other leaf would probably answer 

 the same purpose of excluding the air, and healing a wound, by 

 what surgeons call the first intention. It is numbered amongst 

 cooling and gently astringent vegetables, but its virtues are as yet 

 but slightly ascertained. In sore throats, without much constitu- 

 tional derangement, it is said to be a specific ; and some foreign 

 Physicians of eminence have recommended a decoction of it in 

 the quinsy. 



The Labia't.t. form one of the most natural families in the vegetable king- 

 dom. The plants which compose it are either herbaceous, or slightly shrubby. 

 Their stems are 4-cornered, with opposite ramifications. Their leaves opposite, 

 simple, entire or serrated, sometimes divided; without stipulae; replete with 

 receptacles of aromatic oil. Their flowers are produced in opposite, nearly 

 sessile, axillary cymes, resembling whorls ; sometimes as if capitate. Their 

 calyx (fig. 1.) is inferior, tubular, 5- or 10-toothed, permanent, the odd tooth 

 being next the axis ; regular or irregular. Their corolla (fig. 2.) is monopetal- 

 ous, inferior, 2-lipped ; the upper lip undivided or bifid, overlapping the lower, 

 which is larger and 3-lobed. The stamens (fig. 3.) are 4 in number, 2 of which 

 are shorter than the other 2 (didynamous), inserted upon the corolla, alternately 

 with the lobes of the lower lip ; the 2 upper sometimes wanting (see Salvia, t. 

 65); anthers 2-celled ; sometimes apparently 1-celled, in consequence of the 

 confluence of the cells at the apex ; sometimes one cell is altogether obsolete, or 

 the 2 cells separated by a bifurcation of the connectivum *. Ihe ovarium 

 ( germenj is deeply 4-lobed, and seated in a fleshy hypogynous (inferior) disk ; 

 the lobes each containing one upright ovulum. The style is simple, proceeding 

 from the base of the lobes of the ovarium, and terminated by a bifid, usually 

 pointed stigma. The fruit is composed of from 1 to 4 small nuts, enclosed 

 within the permanent calyx. The seeds are upright, with little or no albumen ; 

 an upright embryo ; and flat cotyledons. 



The plants of this family contain an aromatic volatile oil, camphor, and a 

 bitter extractive, which render them stomatic, stimulant, and tonic. No poison- 

 ous or deleterious species has been found amongst them. See Rich, by Macgillv. 

 and Lindl. Synopsis. 



An arrangement of the genera of the Labiatae has been published by Mr. 

 BiiNTHAM in the Botanical Reyister, folios 1282, 1289, 1292, and 1300. 



* The solid substance which connects the two lobes of the anther, and which 

 is in fact a continuation of the filament, as the midrib of a leaf is of the petiole 

 (or leaf-stalk). Dr. Lindley. 



