a curved base, with ascending axillary branches. Lower
leaves obtuse, obovate or spathulate, tapering down to a
broad winged stalk ; upper ones acute, oblong-lanceolate,
sessile and partially embracing the stem, which is angular
from the edges and midrib of the leaves being decurrent,
and, like the leaves, greyish with abundance of soft spreading
hairs curved upwards. Racemes terminal, solitary or
in pairs, dense and revolute at first, as usual in the genus,
and gradually becoming lax and erect as the flowers expand,
and then separated by a considerable interval from the uppermost
leaf; common stalk cylindrical, its pubescence
sometimes patent in the lower part, sometimes appressed
throughout. Flowers numerous, alternate, in two rows,
on pedicels which originate, without bracteae, on the upper
side of the stalk, and are erect and shorter than the calyx
when in flower, but are afterwards gradually lengthened,
and become patent, and at length curved downward. Calyx
rounded at the base, half 5-cleft, covered with copious
bristles, which are patent and strongly hooked at the lower
part, but appressed towards the points of the segments ;
these are acute, erect when in flower, closed over the ripe
fruit. Corolla with a yellowish somewhat inflated tube,
rather shorter than the calyx, and a concave limb of about
the same length (sometimes considerably larger than in
our figure), the segments rounded, entire or slightly emar-
ginate, rose-coloured at first, afterwards pale bright blue,
with a little white around the yellow scales which almost
close the mouth of the tube. Style rather shorter than the
tube: stigma capitate, obscurely two-lobed. Lobes of the
fruit black and shining, ovate, acute, two-edged, obscurely
triangular towards the point.
M. arvensis of Engl. Bot. 2558, is preserved in the Lin-
naean Herbarium, as M. scorpioides a. Yet Linnaeus in
FI. Suec., speaking of the variations he supposes it to undergo,
plainly points to the plant before us as the type of
that var.; and Fries tells us it is universally recognised in
Sweden as the very J\f. arvensis of Linnaeus. The trivial
name scorpioides seems therefore to belong most properly to
this species ; but every recent author who has retained that
name has assigned it to M. palustris.
For the name, character, and synonyms to t. 2558, the
following may be substituted.
M Y O S O T I S collina.
Early Scorpion-grass.
S p e c . C h a r . Fruit smooth. Calyx with spreading
uncinate bristles ; when in fruit open, ventricose,
as long as the divergent pedicel. Limb of corolla
concave, shorter than the tube. Primordial
raceme usually with one distant flower at the
base.
Syn. Myosotis collina. Hoffm. Germ. FI. 61. Reich-
enb. in Sturm FI. Deut. with a figure. Fries
Nov. Suec. ed. 2. 66. Hook. Brit. FI. 85.
M. arvensis., Engl. Bot. t. 2558. excl. syns. Sm.
Engl. FI. v. 1.252. excl. most of the syns.
M. hispida. Schlecht.” Mert. 8$ Koch. Deut. FI.
v. 2 .4 7 . ’ [
IMertens and Koch regard this as M. collina of Hoffmann,
who quotes M. scorpioides collina of Ehrhart, which
Reichenbach and some other foreign authors also refer to
this species. It may perhaps be preserved as such in some
copies of Ehrhart’s Decades, although the specimen in the
late Sir J. E. Smith’s copy is certainly M. versicolor. It
grows on the driest banks, wall-tops, &c., flowers the
earliest of all our species, and soon withers away.
In Reichenbach’s figure, and in some foreign specimens
in Dr. Hooker’s Herbarium, the one distant flower is wanting.
When Smith says that several axillary flowers are
sometimes found, he alludes, no doubt, to M. stricta of
Link, (M. versicolor /3. Lehm.) which is given as M. scorp.
arvensis in his copy of Ehrhart. We have no knowledge
of that plant as British, although Reichenbach has figured
it as M. arvensis of Sibthorp. It is well distinguished from
M. versicolor, to which it is in other respects the most nearly
allied, by having no stalk to the raceme, the flowers beginning
among the leaves, sometimes from the very base of the
stem.