The Brooklime.
The Common Ragwort of waste places, described on p. [187], is represented in marshes and wet places by a very similar plant called the Marsh Ragwort (Senecio aquaticus), which varies from one to three feet in height, and flowers in July and August. Its stem is more slender than that of S. Jacobæa, and is usually more branched. The leaves are either deeply toothed, or pinnately cut into segments which decrease in size towards the base. The yellow flower-heads are not so densely crowded as in the Common Ragwort, and have longer stalks.
The Scrophulariaceæ contains three common plants of the Veronica genus that grow in wet places. All three are similar in that they have opposite leaves; a corolla with a short tube, and four spreading limbs, of which the lowest is narrowest; two stamens; and a capsular fruit, flattened at right angles to its partition, opening by two valves, and containing a few seeds.
One of these is the Marsh Speedwell (Veronica scutellata), abundant in the marshes and ditches of most parts of Britain. It has a weak, straggling stem, from four to eight inches high, with creeping runners at the base; narrow, smooth, sessile leaves, either uncut or only slightly toothed; and slender racemes of pale pink or white flowers on axillary peduncles arranged alternately, there being only one raceme at each node.
The second is the Water Speedwell (V. Anagallis), a smooth plant, varying from six inches to two feet high, abundant in marshes and ditches, bearing small lilac or white flowers in July and August. Its stem is stout, succulent, hollow, erect, and slightly branched; the leaves narrow, acute, toothed, sessile, sometimes clasping the stem; and the racemes axillary and opposite. The flowers are only a fifth of an inch across.
The Water Figwort.
The third is the Brooklime (V. Beccabunga), a very abundant plant commonly seen growing in ditches in company with the Water Cress and the Marsh-wort. It is a smooth plant, with a stem from one to two feet long, procumbent at the base and rooting at the joints; erect, succulent flowering branches; thick, elliptical, blunt, slightly-toothed leaves on short stalks; and opposite, axillary racemes of blue (occasionally pink) flowers about a third of an inch across.
Two of the Figworts, belonging to the same order (Scrophulariaceæ), are abundant in wet places all over Britain. They are both tall erect plants, with opposite leaves, and peculiar greenish brown or dull purple flowers. In both the corolla is almost spherical and shortly lipped. Two of the five lobes form the upper lip; two are at the sides; and the other, forming the lower lip, is turned down. There are five stamens, four of which are fertile and turned down, while the fifth is barren and scale-like, under the upper lip of the corolla.
