Scotland. The specimen here drawn was sent in May,
1825, by the Rev. R. B. Francis, from a grove at Edgefield,
near Holt, Norfolk.
The flowers rival in size and beauty those of M.palustris
and M. alpestris (M. rupicola of Engl. Bot. 2559). De-
Candolle indeed has joined it with both those species under
the name of M. perennis, and the latter of the two is M.
sylvatica |3. rupicola of Fries. M. paluslris differs decidedly
by the figure and the appressed pubescence of the calyx and
by several other characters; and M. alpestris has the calyx
longer and straight when in fruit, with a much smaller
proportion of curved bristles among its pubescence, and is
further characterized by the long stalks of its root-leaves. It
is much less easy to distinguish M. sylvatica satisfactorily
from M. arvensis. The calyx is more deeply cleft, and the
bristles on its lower part are shorter and less remarkably
hooked, and the whole herb is somewhat less copiously
hairy ; but perhaps none of these differences, slight as they
are, can be depended on as constant. Little remains, besides
the greater size of the plant in all its parts, the different
proportion of the limb of the corolla to its tube, and
the more durable root. This is regarded as perennial;
but Wahlehberg and Fries draw a distinction between it
and a truly perennial root, the former describing it as sub-
perennans, the latter as perennans, not perennis.
Ehrhart appears to have been the first to bestow on the
plant its present name : first as a var. in his Decades, and
afterwards as a species in Reichenbach’s Amcenitates. The
accounts of this species and M. intermedia are much confused
in English Flora.
All our Myosotides have the callous point to the leaf mentioned
by Linnaeus, but it is most conspicuous in the aquatic
species. It is formed by the junction of the midrib with two
nerves which pervade the whole length of the leaf near the
margin.
The generic distinctions afforded by the flowers and fruit
are very slight between Myosotis and Anchusa. In all the
European species of the present genus, excluding Echino-
spermum of Lehman, the fruit is without pubescence, even,
and highly polished, and excepting in M. nana, which has
not been found in Britain, the edges of the lobes are perfectly
entire. The included stamens alone distinguish
Myosotis from the New Holland genus Exarrhena of
Brown. W. B.