We now reach the interesting _Myosotis_ genus of the _Boraginaceæ_, containing the favourite Forget-me-not and the similar Scorpion-grasses. They are all rather low and weak plants, with small, sessile, narrow leaves; and small flowers in one-sided, curved racemes without bracts. The calyx is cleft into five; and the corolla has a short tube, partially closed by five little scales, and five spreading or concave lobes. The stamens are enclosed in the tubes of the flower. Three species are common in wet places. They are-- 1. The Forget-me-not (_Myosotis palustris_).--An abundant plant, growing to a foot or more in height, and bearing, from June to August, bright blue flowers, nearly half an inch across, with a yellow centre. It has a creeping rootstock, with runners, and rather weak ascending stems clothed with spreading hairs. The leaves are blunt, and often covered with hairs that lie close against the surface. The calyx is divided to about a third of its length into short, triangular teeth, and is covered with closely-pressed hairs. [Illustration: THE WATER PEPPER OR BITING PERSICARIA.] 2. The Creeping Water Scorpion-grass (_M. repens_).--A very similar plant, sometimes regarded as a variety of the last. Its stock emits leafy runners above the ground, and the stem is more hairy. The flowers, too, are of about the same size, but of a sky-blue colour, and their stalks are longer, bending downwards when in fruit. The calyx is divided to about the middle into narrow teeth. 3. The Tufted Water Scorpion-grass (_M. cæspitosa_).--Also a similar plant, often regarded as a variety of _M. palustris_; but its flowers are only about half the size, of a sky-blue colour, with narrow calyx teeth almost as long as the corolla. It is of a paler green colour, and the stems are tufted by a free branching at the base. All three of these flower at the same time, and grow in similar situations. Several intermediate forms occur, and thus it is often a difficult matter to distinguish between them. We must here mention the Butterwort (_Pinguicula_) as a summer-flowering plant of marshy places; but this is a carnivorous species; and as such is described, together with other plants of similar habits, in Chapter XXIV. In most parts of Britain we may meet with the pretty little Bog Pimpernel (_Anagallis tenella_) of the _Primulaceæ_. It is a delicate, creeping plant (see Plate V, Fig. 7), only about three or four inches long, with a slender, decumbent stem; and very small, opposite, rounded leaves on short stalks. Its flowers are funnel-shaped, of a pale pink colour, on long, slender, erect, axillary peduncles. The calyx is cut into five pointed lobes; and the corolla is deeply cleft into five segments which are much longer than the calyx. The fruit is a globular capsule that splits transversely into two hemispheres, like that of the Scarlet Pimpernel.