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 leafage.

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.

[Illustration: FIG. V.]