276 PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Myosotis. 
mostly appressed hairs :* racemes leafless : peduncles (in fruit) di¬ 
vergent, twice as long as the funnel-shaped, five-cleft, patent 
calyx; limb of the blossom horizontally expanded, longer than 
the tube : root creeping. E.) 
Curt. 16!) — (E. Bot. 1973. E.)— Kniph. 11. M. palustris — E. Bot. 4>S0, the 
uncolouredfigure — Ger. Em. 337. 3—Park. 691. 8— H. Ox. xi. 31. row 2. 4. 
Plant bright green, from six to twelve or eighteen inches high. ( Root very 
long, blackish, with tufts of fibres. Stems branching, leafy. Leaves 
egg-oblong, sessile, one and a half to two inches long. E.) Flowers in a 
long spike-like bunch, twisted spirally at the top, gradually unrolling. 
Blossom large, fine blue enamel, valves forming a bright yellow eye, con¬ 
vex above, and covering the anthers which are in the hollow underneath. 
(The buds, just before opening, are of a pink hue, which, immediately 
after the flowers are opened, changes to blue. Bart. The calyx, with 
its short, but expanded teeth, when in fruit, and its appressed hairs, dis¬ 
tinguishes this species. Hook. E.) 
Marsh Mouse-ear Scorpion-grass. Forget-me-not. (Irish: 
Billar Ika. Coharagli. Welsh: Ysgorpionllys y gors. E.) M. scorpioides 
palustris. Linn. M. scorpioides d. FI. Brit. (M. palustris. Sm. Hook. 
Lehm. E.) Wet ditches, springs, rivulets, and marshes, common. 
P. May—Aug.t 
(M. ctespito'sa. Seeds smooth: leaves and calyx besprinkled with 
erect bristles: clusters leafy at the base: calyx funnel-shaped. 
* (Dr. Roth considers the direction of the hairs an infallible test for discriminating the 
species of Myosotis hitherto confounded under scorpioides. There is some reason to appre¬ 
hend that this distinction vanishes in the garden ; and even were it absolutely invariable, we 
much question the propriety, or utility of separating, on grounds so trivial, plants present¬ 
ing to all common observation a precisely similar appearance. E.) 
f (The union of sentiment with agreeable objects must ever render them doubly inte¬ 
resting. The little enamelled flower above described has for many centuries been recog¬ 
nized throughout civilized Europe as the emblem of lasting friendship or affection : and 
when such “ FLoure of Souvenance ” happens, as in the present instance, to be connected 
with a romantic tradition, it cannot but become prominent among those 
-“ token flowers that tell 
What words can never speak so well.” Byron. 
From Mills’s History of Chivalry we learn, that on occasion of a joust between the Bastard 
of Burgundy and the Lord Scales, (brother to the Queen of Edward IV.) on the 17th April, 
1465, the Ladies of the Court “ in a mood of harmless merriment,” attached a collar of 
gold enanjelled with these brilliant little flowers, to the thigh of the right worshipful and 
amorous English knight, “for an emprise of arms on horseback and on foot.” This histo¬ 
rical fact stamps an early era of distinction, but tire original derivation of the sentiment is 
of far more remote antiquity, and stands briefly thus recorded : Two lovers were loitering on 
the margin of a lake on a fine summer evening, when the maiden espied an attractive cluster 
of these floral gems growing close to the water on the bank of an island. She expressed 
a desire to possess them, when her knight plunged into the lake, and, swimming to the spot, 
gathered the wished-for plant; but his strength proving unequal to the full accomplishment 
of his purpose, and feeling that he could not regain t,he shore, though very near to it, he 
threw the flower upon the bank, and casting an affectionate glance upon the object his soul 
held most dear, with the exclamation “ Forget me not,” sunk to rise no more. 
“ Pour exprimer 1’amour, ces fleurs semblent dclorre 
Leur langage est un mot—mais il est plein d’appas ! 
Dans la main des amans ellesdisent encor: 
Aimez moi, ne nioubliez pas.” E.) 
