170 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
very short, rarely above twice its own breadth. Racemes 2 to 4 
inches long. Bracts variable in length. Flowers bright-blue, with 
(bukcr veins, rarely pink, when it is V. limosa (Lejean). Capsule 
^ inch long. Plant green, glabrous, shining, succulent, turning 
blackish in drying. 
The pink-flowered form scarcely deserves to be considered a 
variety, the additional character which is given of it, viz. that the 
pedicels are shorter than the bracts, occurs frequently in the 
common blue-flowered form. 
jBrOoTcli/me. 
French, Veronique Aquatlque. German, Bacltbunge. 
The specific name of this plant seems to be derived from the German name Bach- 
bv.nge, signifying a brook, and recalling the old provincial word beck for the same tiling. 
Dr. Prior tells us that the name Brooklime is in old •writers Broklempe or Lympe, from 
it.-, growing in the lime, or mud of brooks, the Anglo-Saxon word lime coming from 
the Latin limns, a word that, from mud having been used in the rude buildings of 
Anglo-Saxon times, has come to be applied to the calcareous stone of which mortar is 
made at the present day, and indicates the reason why few or no buildings of that 
period have been preserved, while so many much older Roman ones have withstood 
dilapidation ; viz. that the lime used was merely mud. 
The leaves and young stems of the Brooklime were once in favour as an anti- 
butic, and even now the young shoots are sometimes eaten as wateroresses, the two 
plants being generally found gi-owing together. They are perfectly wholesome, and 
might be more frequently employed but for prejudice. In olden times the leaves were 
applied to wounds, and are now sometimes bruised and put on burns. The juice, with 
that of scurvy-grass and Seville oranges, formed the " spring juices" once valued as an 
anti.-corbutic. 
Tribe VIII.— EUPHRASIES. 
Corolla tubular, bilabiate ; the upper lip erect or arched, 
covered by the under lobes in bud. Stamens 4, didynamous ; 
anther-lobes usually mucronate. Inflorescence simple, indefinite. 
Leaves generally opposite or verticillate, very rarely alternate 
Plants irenerally (always?) parasitical in the early stage of their 
grow tii. 
GJENZTS X— E UPHRASIA. Toumef. 
Calyx tubular or sharply bellshapcd, not inflated, 1-cleft, 
rarely with a minute fifth tooth. Corolla tubular and bilabiate; 
the upper lip broad, concave, bilobed, with the lobes conspicuous, 
broad, and usually spreading; lower lip 3-cleft, with the lobes 
spreading, obtuse or (more often) emarginate ; palate not plicate. 
Stamens I, sub-didynamous or didynamous, placed under the upper 
lip of the corolla, included or exsertcd ; anthers 2-cclled, with the 
