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Ruskin, John, 1819-1900

"Proserpina, Volume 2 Studies Of Wayside Flowers"


"Stem shrubby, with long flexile branches." (Length or height not told. I
imagine like an ordinary heath's.)
The term 'carina,' occurring twice in the above description, is peculiar to
the structure of the pease and milk-worts; we will examine it afterwards.
The European varieties of the milkwort, except the chamaebuxus, are all
minute,--and, their ordinary epithets being at least inoffensive, I give
them for reference till we find prettier ones; altering only the Calcarea,
because we could not have a 'Chalk Juliet,' and two varieties of the
Regina, changed for reason good--her name, according to the last modern
refinements of grace and ease in pronunciation, being Eu-vularis, var.
genuina! My readers may more happily remember her and her sister as
follows:--
16. (I.) Giulietta Regina. Pure blue. The same in colour, form, and size,
throughout Europe.
(II.) Giulietta Soror-Reginae. Pale, reddish-blue or white in the flower,
and smaller in the leaf, otherwise like the Regina.
(III.) Giulietta Depressa. The smallest of those I can find drawings of.
Flowers, blue; lilac in the fringe, and no bigger than pins' heads; the
leaves quite gem-like in minuteness and order.
(IV.) Giulietta Cisterciana. Its present name, 'Calcarea,' is meant, in
botanic Latin, to express its growth on limestone or chalk mountains. But
we might as well call the South Down sheep, Calcareous mutton.


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