Not to be outdone by its cousins the heliotrope and the forget-me-not, this lovely and far more showy spring flower has found its way into the rockwork and sheltered, moist nooks of many gardens, especially in England, where Mr. W. Robinson, who has appealed for its wider cultivation in that perennially charming book, "The English Flower Garden," says of the Mertensias: "There is something about them more beautiful in form of foliage and stem, and in the graceful way in which they rise to panicles of blue, than in almost any other family.... Handsomest of all is the Virginia cowslip." And yet Robinson never saw the alluvial meadows in the Ohio Valley blued with lovely masses of the plant in April. A great variety of insects visit this blossom, which, being tubular, conducts them straight to the ample feast; but not until they have deposited some pollen brought from another flower on the stigma in their way. The anthers are too widely separated from the stigma to make self-fertilization likely. Occasionally one finds the cowslips perforated by clever bumblebees. As only the females, which are able to sip far deeper cups, are flying when they bloom, they must be either too mischievous or too lazy to drain them in the legitimate manner. Butterflies have only to stand on a flower, not to enter it, in order to sip nectar from the four glands that secrete it abundantly. FORGET-ME-NOT; MOUSE-EAR; SCORPION GRASS; SNAKE GRASS; LOVE ME (Myosotis Palustris) Borage family Flowers - Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye; flat, 5-lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; the lobes narrow, spreading, erect, and open in fruit; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube; style threadlike; ovary 4-celled. Stem: Low, branching, leafy, slender, hairy, partially reclining. Leaves: (Myosotis = mouse-ear) oblong, alternate, seated on stem, hairy. Fruit: Nutlets, angled and keeled on inner side. Preferred Habitat - Escaped from gardens to brooksides, marshes, and low meadows. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Native of Europe and Asia, now rapidly spreading from Nova Scotia southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and beyond. How rare a color blue must have been originally among our flora is evident from the majority of blue and purple flowers that, although now abundant here and so perfectly at home, are really quite recent immigrants from Europe and Asia. But our dryer, hotter climate never brings to the perfection attained in England "The sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers."