Volume II Part 5 (2/2)
5. Montana. D. 1201. The first really creeping plant we have had to notice.
It throws out roots from the rec.u.mbent stems. Otherwise like agrestis, it has leaves like ground-ivy. Called a wood species in the text of D.
6. Persica. An eastern form, but now perfectly naturalized here--D. 1982; S. 973. The flowers very large, and extremely beautiful, but only one springing from each leaf-axil.
Leaves and stem like Montana; and also creeping with new-roots at intervals.
7. Triphylla, (not triphyll_os_,--see Flora Suecica, 22). Meaning trifid-leaved; but the leaf is really divided into five lobes, not three--see S. 974, and G. 10. The palmate form of the leaf seems a mere caprice, and indicates no transitional form in the plant: it may be accepted as only a momentary compliment of mimicry to the geraniums. The Siberian variety, 'multifida,' C. 1679, divides itself almost as the submerged leaves of the water-ranunculus.
The triphylla itself is widely diffused, growing alike on the sandy fields of Kent, and of Troy. In D. 627 is given an extremely delicate and minute northern type, the flowers springing as in Persica, one from each leaf-axil, and at distant intervals.
8. Officinalis. D. 248, S. 294. Fr. 'Veronique officinale'; (Germ.
Gebrauchlicher Ehrenpreis,) our commonest English and Welsh speedwell; richest in cl.u.s.ter and frankest in roadside growth, whether on bank or rock; but a.s.suredly liking _either_ a bank _or_ a rock, and the top of a wall better than the shelter of one. Uncountable 'myriads,' I am tempted to write, but, cautiously and literally, 'hundreds' of blossoms--if one _could_ count,--ranging certainly towards the thousand in some groups, all bright at once, make our Westmoreland lanes look as if they were decked for weddings, in early summer. In the Danish Flora it is drawn small and poor; its southern type being the true one: but it is difficult to explain the difference between the look of a flower which really _suffers_, as in this instance, by a colder climate, and becomes mean and weak, as well as dwarfed; and one which is braced and brightened by the cold, though diminished, as if under the charge and charm of an affectionate fairy, and becomes a joyfully patriotic inheritor of wilder scenes and skies.
Medicinal, to soul and body alike, this gracious and domestic flower; though astringent and bitter in the juice. It is the Welsh deeply honoured 'Fluellen.'--See final note on the myth of Veronica, see -- 18.
9. Thymifolia. Thyme-leaved, G. 6. Of course the longest possible word--serpyllifolia--is used in S. 978. It is a high mountain plant, growing on the top of Crete as the snow retires; and the Veronica minor of Gerarde; ”the roote is small and threddie, taking hold of the _upper surface_ of the earth, where it spreadeth.” So also it is drawn as a creeper in F. 492, where the flower appears to be oppressed and concealed by the leaf.a.ge.
10. Minuta, called 'hirsuta' in S. 985: an ugly characteristic to name the lovely little thing by. The distinct blue lines in the petals might perhaps justify 'picta' or 'lineata,' rather than an epithet of size; but I suppose it is Gerarde's Minima, and so leave it, more safely named as 'minute' than 'least.' For I think the next variety may dispute the leastness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. V.]
11. Verna. D. 252. Mountains, in dry places in early spring. Upright, and confused in the leaf.a.ge, which is sharp-pointed and close set, much hiding the blossom, but of extreme elegance, fit for a sacred foreground; as any gentle student will feel, who copies this outline from the Flora Danica, Fig. 5.
12. Peregrina. Another extremely small variety, nearly pink in colour, pa.s.sing into bluish lilac and white. American; but called, I do not see why, 'Veronique _voyageuse_,' by the French, and Fremder Ehrenpreis in Germany. Given as a frequent English weed in S. 927.
13. Alpina. Veronique des Alpes. Gebirgs Ehrenpreis. Still minute; its scarcely distinct flowers forming a close head among the leaves; round-petalled in D. 16, but sharp, as usual, in S. 980. On the Norway Alps in gra.s.sy places; and in Scotland by the side of mountain rills; but rare.
On Ben Nevis and Lachin y Gair (S.)
14. Scutellata. From the s.h.i.+eld-like shape of its seed-vessels. Veronique a Ecusson; Schildfruchtiger Ehrenpreis. But the seed-vessels are more heart shape than s.h.i.+eld. Marsh Speedwell. S. 988, D. 209,--in the one pink, in the other blue; but again in D. 1561, pink.
”In flooded meadows, common.” (D.) A spoiled and scattered form; the seeds too conspicuous, but the flowers very delicate, hence 'Gratiola minima' in Gesner. The confused ramification of the cl.u.s.ters worth noting, in relation to the equally straggling fibres of root.
15. Spicata. S. 982: very prettily done, representing the inside of the flower as deep blue, the outside pale. The top of the spire, all calices, the calyx being indeed, through all the veronicas, an important and persistent member.
The tendency to arrange itself in spikes is to be noted as a degradation of the veronic character; connecting it on one side with the snapdragons, on the other with the ophryds. In Veronica Ophrydea, (C. 2210,) this resemblance to the contorted tribe is carried so far that ”the corolla of the veronica becomes irregular, the tube gibbous, the faux (throat) hairy, and three of the laciniae (lobes of petals) variously twisted.” The spire of blossom, violet-coloured, is then close set, and exactly resembles an ophryd, except in being sharper at the top. The engraved outline of the blossom is good, and very curious.
16. Gentianoides. This is the most directly and curiously imitative among the--shall we call them--'histrionic' types of Veronica. It grows exactly like a cl.u.s.tered upright gentian; has the same kind of leaves at its root, and springs with the same bright vitality among the retiring snows of the Bithynian Olympus. (G. 5.) If, however, the Caucasian flower, C. 1002, be the same, it has lost its perfect grace in luxuriance, growing as large as an asphodel, and with root-leaves half a foot long.
The petals are much veined; and this, of all veronicas, has the lower petal smallest in proportion to the three above,--”tripl aut quadrupl minori.”
(G.)
17. Stagnarum. Marsh-Veronica. The last four families we have been examining vary from the typical Veronicas not only in their lance-shaped cl.u.s.ters, but in their lengthened, and often every way much enlarged leaves also: and the two which we now will take in a.s.sociation, 17 and 18, carry the change in aspect farthest of any, being both of them true water-plants, with strong stems and thick leaves. The present name of my Veronica Stagnarum is however V. anagallis, a mere insult to the little water primula, which one plant of the Veronica would make fifty of. This is a rank water-weed, having confused bunches of blossom and seed, like unripe currants, dangling from the leaf-axils. So that where the little triphylla, (No. 7, above,) has only one blossom, daintily set, and well seen, this has a litter of twenty-five or thirty on a long stalk, of which only three or four are well out as flowers, and the rest are mere k.n.o.bs of bud or seed.
The stalk is thick (half an inch round at the bottom), the leaves long and misshapen. ”Frequens in fossis,” D. 203. French, Mouron d'Eau, but I don't know the root or exact meaning of Mouron.
An ugly Australian species, 'l.a.b.i.ata,' C. 1660, has leaves two inches long, of the shape of an aloe's, and partly aloeine in texture, ”sawed with unequal, fleshy, pointed teeth.”
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