FEBRUARY. 
21 
THE GENUS MYOSOTIS. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
Without dwelling on the beauties of our Wild Flowers, albeit amongst 
them does occur the Myosotis palustris —the Forget-me-not of poets and of 
lovers, we may at once present to the admirer of garden flowers a threefold 
claim on bis sympathies, in behalf of the genus Myosotis , drawn respectively 
from the parterre, the alpine or rock garden, and the greenhouse; for to 
each and all of these, as well as to our rural lanes and streamlets, the 
Myosotes yield a ccerulean gem which is not to he surpassed for loveliness 
amongst all the flowers of earth. Let us try briefly to substantiate this claim. 
And first of the parterre. Who that has seen the charming masses of 
flowers in the spring garden at Cliveden, would for a moment hesitate to 
admit that here the claim was made good in the case of Myosotis sylvatica f 
as he gazed on sheet after sheet of its heavenly blue, spread out before him 
of that noble garden ? Not one, we are sure. Mr. Fleming speaks of it as one of 
the best and most hardy of the many plants he has employed for beautifying 
the spring, easy of culture, admitting of abundant increase, and bearing trans¬ 
plantation up to the very blooming period, though, he says, it is better planted 
.early, so that it may have time to cover the soil. It is in fine bloom during 
May, but both comes in earlier and, if undisturbed, would continue later 
than that. The seed should be sown in June for the next season’s flower¬ 
ing, the plants having meanwhile been pricked out to give them strength, 
and then planted permanently in the flower-beds either in autumn or early in 
spring. The white variety of this Myosote is equally useful with the blue 
one, and for the same purposes. 
Of the value of the Myosotes for the alpine or rock garden our illustra¬ 
tion speaks in language which is silently eloquent. The plant we now 
figure, namely Myosotis rupicola— or alpestris, as marked on the plate, for 
the two names are synonymous—is a dwarf perennial, found in a few 
elevated northern localities in England and Scotland, but always exceed¬ 
ingly rare. We are indebted to Messrs. Backhouse & Son, of York, who 
exhibited plants at South Kensington in 1865, for the opportunity of figur¬ 
ing so charming a group of it. Mr. J. Backhouse, jun., writing from 
Teesdale on the 15th of May in that year, observes, “ The wild Teesdale 
locality of our M. rupicola was buried in snow apparently a foot thick, ex¬ 
tending 500 feet down the sides of the mountain (Micklefell), and extending 
for ten miles along the summit ridges, only two days ago!” and he adds 
that the M.alpicola of their catalogue of 1864 is a synonym, as also is the 
M. alpestris of Hooker and Babington; but he goes on to say, “ It is certainly 
not the continental alpestris , which I believe is only a mountain form of 
sylvatica .” The dwarf habit and large richly-coloured flowers of this plant 
render it most ornamental either for moist rockwork with a north aspect, or 
for the alpine frame, and in such situations it succeeds very well, the principal 
feature in its treatment being to prevent its becoming too rapidly excited 
by excess of heat. What it requires is a cold moist situation, where it may 
remain at rest all the winter. 
The Azorean Forget-me-not, Myosotis azorica, a dwarf tufted, free-flowering 
perennial, furnishes our illustrative example of a choice greenhouse Myosote. 
This beautiful plant is found in the vicinity of waterfalls in the westerly 
islands of the Azores group, following the course of rocky mountain streams, 
where the atmosphere is kept humid by the water spray. Mr. H. C. Watson, 
