"[18] (Baxter, vol. iii., No. 209.)
14. In the same page, I find quoted Dr. Johnston's observation that "when
specimens of this plant were somewhat rudely pulled up, the flower-stalk,
previously erect, almost immediately began to bend itself backwards, and
formed a more or less perfect segment of a circle; and so also, if a
specimen is placed in the Botanic box, you will in a short time find that
the leaves have curled themselves backwards, and now conceal the root by
their revolution."
I have no doubt that this elastic and wiry action is partly connected with
the plant's more or less predatory or fly-trap character, in which these
curiously degraded plants are associated with Drosera. I separate them
therefore entirely from the Bladderworts, and hold them to be a link
between the Violets and the Droseraceae, placing them, however, with the
Cytherides, as a sub-family, for their beautiful colour, and because they
are indeed a grace and delight in ground which, but for them, would be
painfully and rudely desolate.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
VERONICA.
1. "The Corolla of the Foxglove," says Dr. Lindley, beginning his account
of the tribe at page 195 of the first volume of his 'Ladies' Botany,' "is a
large inflated body(!), with its throat spotted with rich purple, and its
border divided obliquely into five very short lobes, of which the two upper
are the smaller; its four stamens are of unequal length, and its style is
divided into two lobes at the upper end.
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