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Here and there a tall straggling plant of purple lithospermum has found a footing, and flourishes aloft its dark violet tiara of blossoms; while bright tufts of wall-flower send up their tongues of flame from an old tomb peering above the wall, as if from a funeral pyre. The St.

These are used in poultices. The good housewife doctors cut the roots in slices and steep them in brandy; and they are said to be an excellent remedy for all bruises and green wounds: for which purposes it is applied by them with considerable effect. LITHOSPERMUM officinale. GROMWELL. The Seeds. These are roundish, hard, and of a whitish colour, like little pearls.

In spring, small-sized plants bloom here, such as the Anemone, with its blue and white blossoms, the Palmated Violet, the Ranunculus, which are the first ornaments of the prairies in spring; then follow the Esculent Sea-Onion, Pentaloplius longiflorus, Lithospermum hirtum, Cynthia Virginica, and Baptisia leucophaea.

Later the granite rocks are hidden by great trees of white broom, while from north to south every wild piece of land is starred with the brilliant blue flowers of the lithospermum. There are also endless varieties of cistus, from the small yellow annual with rich brown heart to the large gum cistus that covers so much of the poor soil in the Alemtejo.

A delectable path, for example, runs up behind the cemetery, bordered by butterfly orchids and lithospermum and aristolochia and other plants worthy of better names; it winds aloft, under shady chestnuts, with views on either side.

These plains of the Alemtejo are supposed to be the least beautiful part of the country, but no one can cross them in April without being almost overcome with the beauty of the flowers, cistus, white, yellow, or red, tall white heaths, red heaths, blue lithospermum, yellow whin, and most brilliant of all the large pimpernel, whose blue flowers almost surpass the gentian.

WOAD. The leaves steeped in water till the parts are decomposed, produces a fine blue fecula, which is made into cakes, and sold to the woollen-dyers. For its culture, see p. 32. LICHEN Roccella. ORCHIL. The fine purple called orchil is extracted from this moss. LITHOSPERMUM officinale. GROMWELL. The roots afford a fine red, which is used by the young girls in Sweden to colour their faces.

Every sandy bank near the sea is covered with the creeping stems of a huge reed, which grows in summer tall enough to make not only high fences, but fishing-rods. Each dry spot is brilliant with the azure flowers of a prostrate Lithospermum, so exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel why we do not see it, as 'spring-bedding, in every British garden.