VIRGINIA COWSLIP (Mertensia virginica), a North American plant of the borage family (Boraginaceae), called also bluebells, Roanoke-bells, and tree-lungwort. It grows in low meadows and in open woods along streams from New York and Ontario to Minnesota and southward to South Carolina and Kansas. The plant is a smooth perennial, with a usually erect simple or somewhat branching stem, i ft. to 2 ft. high, with large, oblong, long-stalked, very veiny basal leaves. In early
spring it bears at the top of the stem showy clusters of blue purple flowers. These are pink in the bud but when expanded are about an inch long and trumpet-shaped, with a purple tube and a blue bell. This beautiful plant, one of the most popular wild flowers of the eastern States, transplants well and is often culti vated. See BORAGINACEAE ; MERTENSIA.