172 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
with opposite brandies, except in small specimens. Leaves -J to \ inch 
lorn?, sessile or subsessile, with 3 to 6 teeth on each side. Flowers 
in terminal spikes, at first very dense, afterwards more lax. Bracts 
like the leaves, hut usually with sharper divisions. Calyx about 
as long as the bracts (in var. a. usually a little shorter, with 
triangular teeth ; in var. (3 a little longer than the bracts, with 
narrowly triangular aristate teeth). Corolla very variable in size, 
J to \ inch long, white or pale-lilac, with dark-purple stripes 
within, and a yellow spot at the base of the middle lobe of the 
lower lip. Capsule a little shorter than the calyx, J to J inch 
long. Seeds very numerous, minute, fusiform, striated. Plant 
deep-green, pubescent or sub-glabrous, the pubescence sometimes 
glandular, sometimes not. 
A very variable plant, which many of the continental authors 
divide into numerous species ; but it is only by taking single cha- 
racters that it is possible to separate these. Grenier and Godron 
divide it by the hairs on the calyx being glandular or non- 
glandular ; but each of these characters runs through a whole series 
of forms parallel to each other, and the two series are not separated 
by any conspicuous difference in habit. I have therefore followed 
Pries's subdivision ; for although his species graduate insensibly 
into one another, there is a marked difference in the habit of the 
two forms. 
Common Eijebriglit. 
French, En/raise Officinale. German, Gebrduchlicher Aiigentrost. 
There is a legend that the linnet uses this plant to clear its sight, and it has 
long been in vogne for diseases of the eye. It is the euphrasy of Spenser, Milton, and 
othei*s of our old poets, and was believed at their time to have wonderful efficacy in 
the cure of weak eyes and dimness of vision. Thus we find Milton describing the 
Archangel as helping Adam to see more clearly : — 
" Then purged with euphrasie and rue 
His visual orbs, for he had much to see." 
Spenser, too, told how the euphrasie could 
" Give dim eyes to wander leagues around." 
And Cowley has much to say of the wondrous uses of this little wild flower, and thus 
addresses it : — 
" To my eyes reveal 
Thyself, and gratefully thy poet heal, 
If I of plants have anything deserved, 
Or in my verse their honour be preserved. 
Thus lying on the grass, and sad, pray'd I." 
lie then represents the plant as declaring its own virtues : — 
" Then I am useful. If you would engage 
To count my conquests, or the wars I wage, 
