SPEEDWELL. Veronica.

Natural Order Personatæ.

A Genus of the Diandria

Monogynia Class.

No flower in field, that dainty odour throws,
And decks his branch with blossoms over all,
But there was planted, or grew natural.

SPENSER.

We have no less than seventeen species of the Veronica that are indigenous to our country, varying so much in their nature that some display their azure flowers only in the stream, whilst others exhibit their blue corollas on the chalky hills and sandy fields, some fix themselves in marshy ground, some seek the shade of woodlands, and one species attaches itself to old walls.

To this family of plants we have added forty-one exotic species, making, in the whole, fifty-eight, several of which are greatly celebrated by old medical writers, as being efficacious against so many disorders to which the human frame is subject, that the author of "Hist. Plant. adscript. Boerhaave." says he has cured a hundred different disorders with the Veronica Orientalis; and Francus wrote an entire work on the virtues of this single

plant, which is said to have cured a King of France of the leprosy, saved the nose of a Welsh gentleman, and given children to a barren wife.

Milton very justly observes

Dwelt in herbs and drugs a pow'r

To avert man's destined hour,

Learn'd Machaon should have known
Doubtless to avert his own.

Hoffman says, the generic name of this family of plants was derived from φερονικην, meaning φερω, to bring, and un, victory, because it was said to bear the bell among plants.

Without going into the extreme infatuation of our medical ancestors, it may perhaps be equally bad to neglect these celebrated plants in modern practice. We shall not, however, presume to give more than this hint, because it is generally acknowledged that medicine is now advanced to a greater degree of perfection than it ever reached in ancient times. We shall, however, recommend the Brooklime, Veronica Beccabunga, to be eaten as watercresses by those who have a tendency to scorbutic habits. It is even milder and more succulent than the water-cress, and only slightly bitterish in taste. It is generally found growing in rivulets with watercresses; the leaves are set on short petioles, blunt, slightly serrate, of a bright green, and somewhat fleshy. The flower-buds are of a reddish tint, but when they are expanded they are of a fine blue

colour, greatly resembling those of the Myosotis Palustris, or Forget-me-not. In Scotland, the sprigs of Brook-lime are brought to market under the name of Water-purpie.

The Spiked Speedwell, Veronica Spicata, whose bright blue flowers so agreeably enliven the barren spots where it principally flourishes, is one of the plants whose leaves afford a substitute for tea, and its taste is somewhat astringent, like the green tea of China. This plant becomes greatly improved by culture, sending up stalks of flowering spikes from twelve to eighteen inches in height.

The long-leaved Speedwell, Longifolia, is a native of Germany, Austria, and Russia; but it has been one of the plants of our parterres for several ages, having been cultivated in London previous to the year 1596. Of this species there are three varieties, one of which produces spikes of blue flowers, one with flesh-coloured, and one with white corollas.

The perennial sorts of Speedwell are increased by parting the roots in the autumn; and the seed of the annual kinds should be sown at the same season of the year, observing to place those with trailing branches on the slopes of banks in shady situations, whilst the tall-growing kinds may be intermixed with flowering shrubs.

The Speedwell is made the symbol of resemblance, in floral language.

PHLOX, Phlox.

Natural Order Rotaceæ. Polemonia, Juss. A Genus of the Pentandria Monogynia Class.

Come forth

In purple lights, till ev'ry hillock glows
As with the blushes of an evening sky.

AKENSIDE.

THESE brilliant flowers are all peculiar to the New World, excepting one species, which is indigenous to the northern part of Asia; and whether this one is the actual plant which the Greeks named Þrɔž, Phlox, flame, on account of its bright appearance, cannot be proved, since Theophrastus has not given a description to justify the assertion, and Pliny only observes that the Greeks used a flower in their garlands which they called Phlox. North America has yielded us no less than fifteen different species of these flaming plants, to which modern nomenclators have given the name of Phlox, and which we have presumed to place in symbolical language as the emblem of unanimity, in allusion to the united form of these flowers, whose clustered corymbs form an umbel, and from the country from whence we procured them.

Few plants present us with a more agreeable bouquet than is displayed on the stalks of some kinds of Phlox, some of which have their corollas of a beautiful lilac, lightly tinged with rose, some of an ardent red, some of a pure white, and others of a bright purple like a flame, from whence the idea of the name of Flamma, or Phlox.

The Smooth Phlox, Glaberrima, was the first kind cultivated in this country, which Miller seems to have grown in the botanic garden at Chelsea, as long back as the year 1725; and, although it is now a century since this plant was first introduced, yet it remains rather a rare than a common plant, in comparison to many others of less beauty, and later introduction. This kind sends up a stalk near twenty inches in height, dividing into three or four small branches towards the top, each terminated by a corymb of flowers, that usually appear in June.

The Shining-leaved Phlox, Suffruticosa, which was brought to this country in the year 1813, is a beautiful species, throwing up stalks about two feet in height, from which are displayed corymbs of flowers of a most brilliant violet purple colour, somewhat resembling a fine cluster of Polyanthuses, excepting that the eye of the flower seems placed in a star. This ornamental plant, which is a native of South Carolina, flowers from the end of July to