think of nothing to call it but 'dainty,' and will leave it at present
unchristened.

5. Lastly. I can't think why I omitted V. Humifusa, S. 979, which seems to
be quite one of the most beautiful of the family--a mountain flower also,
and one which I ought to find here; but hitherto I know only among the
mantlings of the ground, V. thymifolia and officinalis. All these, however,
agree in the extreme prettiness and grace of their crowded leafage,--the
officinalis, of which the leaves are shown much too coarsely serrated in S.
984, forming carpets of finished embroidery which I have never yet rightly
examined, because I mistook them for St. John's wort. They are of a
beautiful pointed oval form, serrated so finely that they seem smooth in
distant effect, and covered with equally invisible hairs, which seem to
collect towards the edge in the variety Hirsuta, S. 985.

For the present, I should like the reader to group the three flowers, S.
979, 984, 985, under the general name of Humifusa, and to distinguish them
by a third epithet, which I allow myself when in difficulties, thus:

V. Humifusa, cærulea, the beautiful blue one, which resembles
Spicata.
V. Humifusa, officinalis, and,
V. Humifusa, hirsuta: the last seems to me extremely interesting, and I
hope to find it and study it carefully.

By this arrangement we shall have only twenty-one species to remember: the
one which chiefly decorates the ground again dividing into the above three.

6. These matters being set right, I pass to the business in hand, which is
to define as far as possible the subtle relations between the Veronicas and