Part 25

The Eyebright stem varies much in height. Sometimes you find it only about two inches from the ground, and in other places it has straggled eighteen inches high. These stems are very hairy.

The leaves grow opposite each other in pairs up the stem. They have no stalks, and the edges are cut all round into blunt teeth. They are rather hairy leaves, and are dark green and crinkled. In shape they are oval with a blunt point at the end.

2. WHITE DEAD NETTLE

The White Dead Nettle is fairly common everywhere except in the North of Scotland. You find it in waste places, by the roadside, and on ditch banks, and it blooms from spring to autumn.

This is a much more attractive plant than the Stinging Nettle we have all learned to avoid.

The flowers grow in beautiful whorls or circles round the stem. In this plant the flowers are snowy white, tinged with green, but in other Dead Nettles you find them rose pink or deep purple.

There are often as many as eighteen flowers on one whorl. The flower petals are joined together into a tube which stands in a shallow calyx-cup, edged with five very long, sharp teeth. The mouth of the white flower-tube is cut very irregularly. The upper part bends over like a hood, and underneath this hood are hidden the four long stamens. The lower part of the flower-tube hangs down like a tongue, and it is fringed and rounded at the end. Amongst the stamens you see the slender forked point which rises from the seed-vessel.

The leaves of the White Dead Nettle are very similar in shape to those of the Stinging Nettle; but they are a paler shade of green. They grow in pairs close to the stem, with a good space in between each pair, and the ring of stalkless flowers clusters round the stem beside them.

3. SPOTTED ORCHIS

This Orchis is common all over the country, where it grows in damp woods, on chalky banks, and in meadows and pastures.

You find it in summer.

The leaves are stained with purplish-black blotches as in the early Purple Orchis, but they are narrower and taper more to a point. Notice the small leaves which cling at intervals to the flower-stalk all the way up.

The flowers grow in a dense cone-shaped head at the top of the flower-stalk. The petals are pale lilac or nearly white, and are spotted or streaked with purple. They are curiously shaped. The broad petal, which folds back like a hanging lip, is deeply waved round the edge, and behind it there is a long lilac spur.

Two petals stand erect, and form a hood which covers the stamens and the slender column of the seed-vessel.

There are also three small lilac or white sepals which you will scarcely be able to distinguish from the petals.

The flower sits at the top of what looks like a swollen stalk, but is really the seed-vessel.

Where this stalk-like seed-vessel joins the main stem there is always a tiny purple or green leaflet.

PLATE XXVII: 1. RED BERRIED BRYONY 2. CHICKWEED WINTERGREEN 3. CUCKOOPINT OR WAKE ROBIN

1. RED-BERRIED BRYONY

The Red-Berried Bryony is very common in the South of England, where it climbs over the hedges and grows among the thickets. But it does not grow wild in the North. It is in flower all summer and autumn.

The stems of this plant are soft and easily broken, and they have not enough strength to keep the leaves and flowers upright. But at the bottom of each leaf-stalk, there are long curly green tendrils, and with these the Bryony catches hold of some stronger plant, which helps to support it.

The flowers are greenish-white in colour, and they grow in loose heads which spring from between the leaf-stalk and the stem.

These flowers have five separate greenish-white petals covered with a fine network of veins and with many transparent hairs.

At the back of the petals sits a green calyx-cup edged with five pointed teeth.

When the flowers are withered they are followed by groups of beautiful dark red berries.

The Red Bryony leaves are very large, and are shaped like a hand with five blunt fingers. The green colour is pale and bright, and each leaf is covered with short white hairs.

2. CHICKWEED WINTERGREEN

It is delightful to find the Chickweed Wintergreen as it is rather a rare plant. It grows in fir woods and on heaths in hilly districts, and it blooms all summer. There is no other plant at all like this Wintergreen, so you will have no difficulty in recognising it.