LYCOPSIS arvenfts.
Sm a ll B u glo fs.
P E N T A N D R I A Monogynia.
G en. C har. Cor. with a curved tube, the mouth
clofed with convex fcales.
Spec. C har. Leaves lanceolate, briflly. Calyx while
in flower ereft.
Syn . Lycopfis arventis. Linn. Sp. P I. 199. Sm.
FI. B rit. 221. Hudf. 82. With. 231. Hull. 47.
Relb. 79. Sibth. 71. Abbot. 43. Curt. Lond.
fa fc. $. t . 17.
Buglofla fylveftris minor. Ra'u Syn. 227.
C o m m o n every where in fields and on dry hedge banks
during the early part of fummer, flowering chiefly in June,
after which the herb is dried up, fcatters its feeds, and the
final 1 annual root withers away.
The ftem is upright, ftraight, more or lefs branched, angular,
leafy. Leaves alternate, lanceolate; beart-fhaned, and
clafping the ftem at their bafe, (except the radical ones, which
taper into a footftalk,) waved in their margin. Flowers in
terminal revolute fpikes foon lengthened out into leafy racemi.
Calyx of 3 lanceolate fegments, ereft both in flower and fruit.
Tube of the corolla white, cylindrical, remarkably, and feem-
ingly artificially, bent, containing the 3 fhort ftamina at the
curved part. Its mouth is completely clofed by 3 convex
white downy valves, which elegantly contrail with the bright
blue o f the limb of the corolla, and entirely conceal all the organs
of fructification. Four vertical angular rugged naked feeds are
at length contained in the enlarged calyx. Every part of the
herb, except the corolla, is clothed with pungent briftles. Its
juices are mucilaginous, like thofe of Borage, to which it is
nearly akin, however widely different in the corolla and
ftamina; fee vol. 1 . 1. 36.