subdued lilac blue. On Mount Hymettus: no other locality given in the Flora
Græca.

15. I am sorry, and shall always be so, when the varieties of any flower
which I have to commend to the student's memory, exceed ten or twelve in
number; but I am content to gratify his pride with lengthier task, if
indeed he will resign himself to the imperative close of the more inclusive
catalogue, and be content to know the twelve, or sixteen, or twenty,
acknowledged families, thoroughly; and only in their illustration to think
of rarer forms. The object of 'Proserpina' is to make him happily cognizant
of the common aspect of Greek and English flowers; under the term
'English,' comprehending the Saxon, Celtic, Norman, and Danish Floras. Of
the evergreen shrub alluded to in § 11 above, the Veronica Decussata of the
Pacific, which is "a bushy evergreen, with beautifully set cross-leaves,
and white blossoms scented like olea fragrans," I should like him only to
read with much surprise, and some incredulity, in Pinkerton's or other
entertaining travellers' voyages.

16. And of the families given, he is to note for the common simple
characteristic, that they are quatrefoils referred to a more or less
elevated position on a central stem, and having, in that relation, the
lowermost petal diminished, contrary to the almost universal habit of other
flowers to develope in such a position the lower petal chiefly, that it may
have its full share of light. You will find nothing but blunder and
embarrassment result from any endeavour to enter into further particulars,
such as "the relation of the dissepiment with respect to the valves of the
capsule," etc., etc., since "in the various species of Veronica almost
every kind of dehiscence may be observed" (C. under V. perfoliata, 1936, an
Australian species). Sibthorpe gives the entire definition of Veronica with
only one epithet added to mine, "Corolla quadrifida, _rotata_, laciniâ