The leaves of the Blue Meadow Crane's-bill are beautifully shaped. They are like a hand with five thin fingers, and each of these fingers is deeply cut up all round the edges. The stem of the plant is covered with rough, hairy bristles. 2. MILKWORT The Milkwort has flowers which are not always the same colour. You may find them either pink, or blue, or white, but I think the blue Milkwort is the commonest. It blooms all summer. The flowers grow on spikes in which the buds are always at the top, and further down the same spike there are leaves. Each flower has five sepals. Three are only small green strips, but inside these three there are two which are large and broad, and beautifully coloured. These look like petals. When the flower is withered these two sepals change colour and become green. The real petals are paler in colour than the sepals. The lowest one is cut up at the end into little strips like a blue fringe, and there are two small side petals as well as two upper ones, which are so tiny that they are merely scales. The leaves resemble narrow straps. They grow alternately on the stem, and they are dark green above and pale green below. The Milkwort lies close to the ground among the grass. You would never notice it, were it not for its beautiful spikes of blue, pink-white flowers. 3. CORN FLOWER The Corn Flower or Blue Bottle is common all over Britain; you find it in the cornfields and by the roadside, and it flowers all summer and autumn. This pretty plant belongs to the same family as the Thistles. The flower-heads are made up of a great many flowers grouped together. In the outer row you find a circle of beautiful bright blue flowers, each of which consists of a blue tube which widens out at the mouth like a trumpet, and is edged with seven sharp points. Inside this outer circle there is a mass of darker blue flowers, slightly tinged with rose-colour. These flowers are very much smaller, and their pinky tubes are very tiny. So are the strap-shaped teeth at the mouth of the tube. Coming out of the mouth of each tube is the dark purple tip of the seed-vessel. Underneath this bunch of flowers there is a double ring of green scales with fringed edges. These scales are tightly pressed together in the shape of a cup, but they are not prickly as in some of the Thistles. The stems of the Corn Flower are very tough. The plant is tall and straggling, and it has narrow strap-shaped leaves with smooth edges. These leaves, as well as the stems, are often covered with white woolly down. 4. TUFTED VETCH The Tufted Vetch is a very common plant, and all summer-time you find its masses of bright blue or purple flowers growing up the hedges. It belongs to the large family of Pea-plants, along with the Broom and the Trefoils, and you will find that its bright bluish-purple petals are shaped as curiously as those of the other Pea-plants.