Veronica reclines with
the lowly,[21] upon occasion, and aspires, with the proud; is here the
pleased companion of the ground-ivies, and there the unrebuked rival of the
larkspurs: on the rocks of Coniston it effaces itself almost into the film
of a lichen; it pierces the snows of Iceland with the gentian: and in the
Falkland Islands is a white-blossomed evergreen, of which botanists are in
dispute whether it be Veronica or Olive.

12. Of these many and various forms, I find the manners and customs alike
inconstant; and this of especially singular in them--that the Alpine and
northern species bloom hardily in contest with the retiring snows, while
with us they wait till the spring is past, and offer themselves to us only
in consolation for the vanished violet and primrose. As we farther examine
the ways of plants, I suppose we shall find some that determine upon a
fixed season, and will bloom methodically in June or July, whether in
Abyssinia or Greenland; and others, like the violet and crocus, which are
flowers of the spring, at whatever time of the favouring or frowning year
the spring returns to their country. I suppose also that botanists and
gardeners know all these matters thoroughly: but they don't put them into
their books, and the clear notions of them only come to me now, as I think
and watch.

13. Broadly, however, the families of the Veronica fall into three main
divisions,--those which have round leaves lobed at the edge, like ground
ivy; those which have small thyme-like leaves; and those which have long
leaves like a foxglove's, only smaller--never more than two or two and a
half inches long. I therefore take them in these connections, though
without any bar between the groups; only separating the Regina from the
other thyme-leaved ones, to give her due precedence; and the rest will then
arrange themselves into twenty families, easily distinguishable and
memorable.

[Illustration: FIG. IV.]

I have chosen for Veronica Regina, the brave Icelandic one, which pierces
the snow in first spring, with lovely small shoots of perfectly set leaves,
no larger than a grain of wheat; the flowers in a lifted cluster of five or
six together, not crowded, yet not loose; large, for veronica--about the
size of a silver penny, or say half an inch across--deep blue, with ruby
centre.

My woodcut, Fig. 4, is outlined[22] from the beautiful engraving D.
342,[23]--there called 'fruticulosa,' from the number of the young s