Family

Figwort.

Colour

Blue and white.

Odour

Scentless.

Range

Western New York southward and west7vard.

Time of Bloom

Early spring.

Flowers: growing on long slender peduncles that are whorled in the axils of the upper leaves. Calyx: five-cleft. Corolla: tubular; deeply two-lipped;

the upper lip two-cleft and blue; the lower lip three-cleft and white; the middle lobe folded like a pocket and enclosing the stamens and style. Stamens: four. Pistil: one. Leaves: opposite; ovate; clasping by a heart-shaped base as they ascend the stem. Stem: erect; branching.

The name of blue-eyed Mary harmonizes well with her sweet personality; although in her blue eye there is a quiet gleam that makes us fancy she is neither so meek nor so innocent as she would have us believe. She is rather a stay-at-home, and unless we persuade her it is to be doubted whether she will ever spread herself over the moist meadows of the eastern states as she does now over those of the west and south.