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LITHOSPERMUM PURPUREO-COERULEUM. 
deficiencies to which I have drawn attention, and to record the 
facts that the roots do not creep ; that fruits are ripened on 
every cyme if not in every calyx ; and that the barren shoots, 
which seldom spring from a flowering root, are primarily erect, 
then high arching, and ultimately root at the tip, often at a 
considerable distance from the parent ; the young plants quickly 
becoming separated by the decay of the connecting links. 
LitJiospermimi 'purpureo-cceruleum is at home in the warm 
borders of rocky woods in Somerset, within the area of the Bristol 
Coal-field, and on that account may be regarded as a Bristol 
plant. Old woods and coppices of oak, beech, whitebeam, and 
hazel are frequent on the Mendips, nestling in hollows at the 
base of the hills, or clothing the flank of some outlying spur. 
Sheltering amid the coarse herbage and tangling briars on the 
sunny fringes of these woods, seldom penetrating very far into 
the shade, nor yet venturing more than a yard or two into the 
open ground, the handsome deep blue flowers of our plant can 
be seen abundantly in many places at the beginning of May. 
The soil is merely fragments of limestone leavened with a little 
loam, from which the roots can readily be disengaged. The 
rootstock is small, woody, gnarled and twisted, with compara- 
tively large fibres or branchlets. Its position is more or less 
horizontal ; and, producing shoots only at the apex, it lengthens 
annually to the extent of the width of the terminal buds. At 
the early season when the flowers first open, the stems, barren 
or flowering, rarely exceed a foot in height. They are alike 
erect, and the inflorescence is compact and half shrouded amid 
the agglomerated bracts and terminal leaves of the shoot. The 
cyme quickly elongates and discovers two or sometimes three 
forks, which continue to lengthen during the summer until the 
fruit is ripe in October, when the total height of the stem may be 
two feet on an average, of which the fruit cyme will occupy a third. 
The calyx segments also grow to about double their original length. 
