Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/168

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A very neat and beautiful plant, not nearly so well-known as it should be. It is an annual plant, with erect stem, less than a foot in height, the leaves in pairs growing together at their bases, and funnel-shaped pink flowers produced in terminal cymes. It grows in woods and sandy or chalky pastures, flowering from June till September.

The name is from the Greek, Eruthros, red, in allusion to the pink flowers.

So familiar is the Sweet Mignonette of our gardens, and so like and yet unlike are these wild species, that whilst no one would take them for the garden plant one need not be a botanist to see their natural affinities at a glance. Like their garden relative these are annual herbs, becoming biennial when we have mild winters; with flowers that are individually inconspicuous, but which gain sufficient prominence by being associated in racemes. In colour they are a yellow-green. The calyx is irregular, and divided into from four to seven narrow segments; there is a similar number of unequal petals, each deeply cleft into two lobes, and a multitude of stamens. The stigmas are lobes at the mouth of the open ovary. I. Wild Mignonette (R. lutea) grows in dry waste places, especially in chalky districts. Its leaves vary a great deal, but are either pinnate or deeply lobed in a somewhat irregular manner. Flowers, pale-yellow in a tolerably dense raceme. Very similar to the Sweet Mignonette, but stiffer, more erect, and scentless. Flowers June to September.

II. Weld (R. luteola). This is a much taller plant than R. lutea, with longer racemes and denser; the flowers more green than