United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


He saw the girl in a little cottage, the window open to let the first of the spring air into the room, she lying well wrapped up on a couch, a few wild-flowers on the table, daffodils and primroses from the woods, pink-tipped daisies from the banks, the red dead-nettle from the hedge-rows, and perhaps herself, to please him, and out of gratitude as it were, reading some of Tannahill's songs, 'Loudon's bonnie woods and braes, 'Langsyne, beside the woodland burn, 'Keen blows the wind o'er the Braes o' Gleniffer, 'We'll meet beside the dusky glen on yon burn side. Poor child! she had probably seen but little of the country during her hard life.

You see now that this is very useful to the flowers. If the bee went from a dead-nettle to a geranium, the dust would be lost, for it would be of no use to any other plant but a dead- nettle. But since the bee likes to get the same kind of honey each journey, she goes to the same kind of flowers, and places the pollen-dust just where it is wanted.

So they turned and walked leisurely across the gorse-covered downs until they reached the broad and dusty highway leading towards Winstead village. And then again they struck into a by-lane with tall hedges, the banks underneath which were bright with stitchwort and speedwell and white dead-nettle.

With Lamium maculatum or spotted dead-nettle, the affinity is so close that even Bentham united the two in a single species, considering the ordinary dead-nettle only as a variety of the dappled purple type.

The family of the labiates seems to be essentially rich in terminal pelories, as for instance in the wild sage or Salvia and the dead-nettle or Lamium. Here the pelories have long and straight corolla-tubes, which are terminated by a whorl of four or five segments.

The dandelion, the lesser celandine, the marsh marigold, the coltsfoot, all yellow, had already led the van, closely accompanied by the purple ground-ivy, the red dead-nettle, and the daisy; this last a late comer in the neighbourhood. The blackthorn, the horse-chestnut, and the hawthorn came, and the meadows were golden with the buttercups.

This year has been remarkable for two plants so far, a sort of varnished green ground-weed, with a small white flower, and a dull crimson dead-nettle; both of them have covered the ground in places in huge patches. This is both strange and pleasant, I think.

Brown lie the acorns, yellow where they were fixed in their cups; two of these cups seem almost as large as the great acorns from abroad. A red dead-nettle, a mauve thistle, white and pink bramble flowers, a white strawberry, a little yellow tormentil, a broad yellow dandelion, narrow hawkweeds, and blue scabious, are all in flower in the lane.

The Anthlyllis vulneraria is "Our Lady's fingers," and the kidney-wort has been designated "lady's navel." Certain orchids, from the peculiar form of their hand-shaped roots, have been popularly termed "Our Lady's hands," a name given in France to the dead-nettle.

They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair as they drove rapidly along.