174 
pubescence. Flowers blue, very small, in simple racemes; the lowermost flower 
usually remote, near the base of the raceme ; sometimes, though rarely, in the axil 
of the leaf from which it springs. Its flower-stalks are remarkably recurved when 
in fruit, in my specimens. It is probable that this species, in consequence of its 
early flowering and fugacious nature, may frequently escape notice ; but I am con¬ 
vinced that it is not a common plant, as the above station on a sand-bank near 
Hagley, is the only one in which I have hitherto detected it. The smaller varieties 
of M. arvensis are probably sometimes confounded with this species; and judging 
from the list of synonymes in the English Flora attached to the M. arvensis of 
its lamented author, which is really this plant, Sir James Smith does not appear to 
have been exempt from this error. 
8. M. versicolor , Lehm., f Yellow and Blue Scorpion Grass). Calyx with 
spreading hooked bristles, when in fruit oblong, longer than the almost erect 
pedicels. Limb of the corolla concave, shorter than the exserted tube. 
M. versicolor, Eng. Boh, t. 2558; Hook. Scot, p. 67; Smith, Eng. FI., 
v. i., p. 253; Borr. in Hook. Br. FI., ed. 3, p. 104. M. scorpioides, P, Huds., 
p. 78. M. scorpioides, y, Linn., Sp. Plant., p. 189. M. scorpioides hirta minor, 
Raii Syn., p. 229. 
Dry sandy fields and pastures, on walls, in wet meadows, &c. Common. An¬ 
nual ; flowers from April to June. Root fibrous. Stem four to six inches high, 
branching from the base, clothed with lax whitish hairs, leafy. Flowers upon long- 
stalked racemes, changing colour from yellow to blue as the spirally-curved summit 
of the stalk is unfolded. The calyx is very deeply cleft, more than three-fourths 
of its length, and by no means closed when in fruit, as stated in the British 
Flora. The succession of blue and yellow flowers is a very curious fact, and one 
which deserves more investigation than it has yet received; as the change of 
colour from yellow to blue is not easily accounted for. There can, however, be 
little doubt that it really occurs, as an attentive examination of the flowers shews 
that the upper or younger ones, as Mr. Borrer has remarked, are always yellow, 
while the lower or older ones are as constantly blue. This plant attains a consi¬ 
derable elevation : I have found it growing luxuriantly on the North Hill, Mal¬ 
vern, near the summit, (which is about 1400 feet above the level of the sea), and 
also on the top of Ankerdyne Hill. But, notwithstanding the high authority of 
the authors of the English and British Floras, I am disposed to think that it is 
not generally of very common occurrence. It is certainly not frequent in the 
neighbourhood of Worcester ; and the late Mr. Purton, in his excellent Midland 
Flora, marks it as rare, giving only the habitat on the Malvern Plills, where I have 
myself found it. 
The various colours of the flowers and other parts of plants have been 
supposed to be owing to variations in the degree of oxydation. Light obvi¬ 
ously exerts great influence in developing colours: thus the leaves of plants 
