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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Call of the Wildflower
+
+Author: Henry S. Salt
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2010 [EBook #34380]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreaders at fadedpage.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    THE CALL OF THE
+    WILDFLOWER
+
+
+
+
+    _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+    SEVENTY YEARS AMONG SAVAGES. 12s. 6d.
+
+    THE FLOGGING CRAZE. A Statement of the Case
+    against Corporal Punishment. With Foreword by
+    Sir George Greenwood. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
+
+    ON CAMBRIAN AND CUMBRIAN HILLS.
+    Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scafell. Revised
+    Edition. 5s. net.
+
+    C. W. DANIEL LTD.
+
+    ANIMALS' RIGHTS: Considered in relation to Social
+    Progress. Revised Edition. 2s. 6d.
+
+    DE QUINCEY. Great Writers Series. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    G. BELL & SONS LTD.
+
+    THE LIFE OF HENRY D. THOREAU. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO.
+
+    RICHARD JEFFERIES: His Life and his Ideals. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    JONATHAN CAPE.
+
+    THE LIFE OF JAMES THOMSON, B.V. 2s. 6d. net.
+
+    TREASURES OF LUCRETIUS. Selected Passages
+    translated into English Verse. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    WATTS & CO.
+
+[Illustration: _G. P. Abraham & Sons._] [_Photo. Keswick_
+
+THE HAUNT OF THE SPIDERWORT
+
+The Devil's Kitchen, Carnarvonshire]
+
+
+
+
+    THE CALL OF THE
+    WILDFLOWER
+
+    BY
+    HENRY S. SALT
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
+    RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.
+
+    _First published in 1922_
+
+    (_All rights reserved_)
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    MY FRIENDS
+
+    W. J. JUPP and E. BERTRAM LLOYD
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+I am indebted to the courtesy of the editors of the _Daily News_, _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, _Liverpool Daily Post_, and _Sussex Daily News_, for
+permission to reprint in this book the substance of articles that first
+appeared in their columns.
+
+My obligation to Jack London, in regard to the choice of a title, will
+be apparent.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+    I. THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER                                      9
+
+    II. ON SUSSEX SHINGLES                                            21
+
+    III. BY DITCH AND DIKE                                            29
+
+    IV. LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE                                        37
+
+    V. BOTANESQUE                                                     43
+
+    VI. THE OPEN DOWNLAND                                             50
+
+    VII. PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE                                    58
+
+    VIII. PICKING AND STEALING                                        63
+
+    IX. ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT                                      68
+
+    X. A SANDY COMMON                                                 77
+
+    XI. QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS                                         85
+
+    XII. HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS                                     90
+
+    XIII. THE SOWER OF TARES                                          97
+
+    XIV. DALES OF DERBYSHIRE                                         103
+
+    XV. NO THOROUGHFARE!                                             113
+
+    XVI. LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS                                 121
+
+    XVII. ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH                              128
+
+    XVIII. A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL                                 133
+
+    XIX. FELONS AND OUTLAWS                                          139
+
+    XX. SOME MARSH-DWELLERS                                          144
+
+    XXI. A NORTHERN MOOR                                             151
+
+    XXII. APRIL IN SNOWDONIA                                         158
+
+    XXIII. FLOWER-GAZING _IN EXCELSIS_                               164
+
+    XXIV. COVES OF HELVELLYN                                         171
+
+    XXV. GREAT DAYS                                                  178
+
+    XXVI. THE LAST ROSE                                              185
+
+    INDEX                                                            191
+
+
+
+
+The Call of the Wildflower
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER
+
+    _Tantus amor florum._
+
+    VIRGIL.
+
+
+THE "call of the wild," where the love of flowers is concerned, has an
+attraction which is not the less powerful because it is difficult to
+explain. The charm of the garden may be strong, but it is not so strong
+as that which draws us to seek for wildflowers in their native haunts,
+whether of shore or water-meadow, field or wood, moorland or mountain. A
+garden is but a "zoo" (with the cruelty omitted); and just as the true
+natural history is that which sends us to study animals in the wilds,
+not to coop them in cages, so the true botany must bring man to the
+flower, not the flower to man.
+
+That the lovers of wildflowers--those, at least, who can give active
+expression to their love--are not a numerous folk, is perhaps not
+surprising; for even a moderate knowledge of the subject demands such
+favourable conditions as free access to nature, with opportunities for
+observation beyond what most persons command; but what they lack in
+numbers they make up in zeal, and to none is the approach of spring more
+welcome than to those who are then on the watch for the reappearance of
+floral friends.
+
+For it is as friends, not garden captives or herbarium specimens, that
+the flower-lover desires to be acquainted with flowers. It is not their
+uses that attract him; _that_ is the business of the herbalist. Nor is
+it their structure and analysis; the botanist will see to that. What he
+craves is a knowledge of the loveliness, the actual life and character
+of plants in their relation to man--what may be called the spiritual
+aspect of flowers--and this is seen and felt much more closely when they
+are sought in their free wild state than when they are cultivated on
+rockery or in parterre.
+
+The reality of this love of wildflowers is evident, but its cause and
+meaning are less easy to discern. Is it only part of a modern "return to
+nature," or a sign of some latent sympathy between plant and man? We do
+not know; but we know that our interest in flowers is no longer
+utilitarian, as in the herbalism of a bygone time, or decorative and
+æsthetic, as in the immemorial use of the garland on festive occasions,
+and in the association of the wine-cup with the rose. The "great
+affection" that Chaucer felt for the daisy marked a new era; and later
+poets have carried the sentiment still further, till it reached a climax
+in the faith that Wordsworth avowed:
+
+    One impulse from a vernal wood
+      May teach you more of man,
+    Of moral evil and of good,
+      Than all the sages can.
+
+Here is a new herbalism--of the heart. We smile nowadays at the
+credulity of the old physicians, who rated so highly the virtues of
+certain plants as to assert, for example, that comfrey--the "great
+consound," as they called it--had actual power to unite and solidify a
+broken bone. But how if there be flowers that can in very truth make
+whole a broken spirit? Even in the Middle Ages it was recognized that
+mental benefit was to be gained from this source, as when betony was
+extolled for its value in driving away despair, and when _fuga dæmonum_
+was the name given to St. John's-wort, that golden-petaled amulet which,
+when hung over a doorway, could put all evil spirits to flight. That,
+like many another flower, it can put "the blues" to flight, is a fact
+which no modern flower-lover will doubt.
+
+But what may be called the anthropocentric view of wildflowers is now
+happily becoming obsolete. "Their beauty was given them for our
+delight," wrote Anne Pratt in one of the pleasantest of her books:[1]
+"God sent them to teach us lessons of Himself." It would somewhat spoil
+our joy in the beauty of wildflowers if we thought they had been "sent,"
+like potted plants from a nursery, for any purpose whatsoever; for it is
+their very naturalness, their independence of man, that charms us, and
+our regard for them is less the prosaic satisfaction of an owner in his
+property, than the love of a friend, or even the worship of a devotee:
+
+    The devotion to something afar
+      From the sphere of our sorrow.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Haunts of the Wild Flowers._]
+
+This, I think, is the true gospel of the love of flowers, though as yet
+it has found but little expression in the literature of the subject.
+"Flowers as flowers," was Thoreau's demand, when he lamented in his
+journal that there was no book which treated of them in that light, no
+real "biography" of plants. The same want is felt by the English reader
+to-day: there is no writer who has done for the wildflower what Mr. W.
+H. Hudson has done for the bird.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Unless it be Canon John Vaughan, in those two delightful
+books of his, _The Wild-Flowers of Selborne_ and _The Music of
+Wild-Flowers_.]
+
+Indeed, the books mostly fail, not only to portray the life of the
+plant, but even to give an intelligible account of its habitat and
+appearance; for very few writers, however sound their technical
+knowledge, possess the gift of lucid description--a gift which depends,
+in its turn, upon that sympathy with other minds which enables an author
+to see precisely what instruction is needed. Thus it often happens
+that, unless personal help is available, it is a matter of great
+difficulty for a beginner to learn the haunts of flowers, or to
+distinguish them when found; for when he refers to the books he finds
+much talk about inessential things, and little that goes directly to the
+point.
+
+One might have thought that a new and strange flower would attract the
+eye more readily than a known one, but it is not so; the old is detected
+much more easily than the new. "Out of sight, out of mind," says the
+proverb; and conversely that which is not yet in mind will long tarry
+out of sight. But when once a new flower, even a rare one, has been
+discovered, it is curious how often it will soon be noticed afresh in
+another place: this, I think, must be the experience of all who have
+made systematic search for flowers, and it explains why the novice will
+frequently see but little where the expert will see much.
+
+Not until the various initial obstacles have been overcome can one
+appreciate the true "call of the wild," the full pleasures of the chase.
+When we have learnt not only what plants are to be looked for, but those
+two essential conditions, the _when_ and the _where_; the rule of season
+and of soil; the flowers that bloom in spring, in summer, or in autumn;
+the flowers that grow by shore, meadow, bog, river, or mountain; on
+chalk, limestone, sand, or clay--then the quest becomes more effective,
+and each successive season will add materially to our widening circle
+of acquaintance.
+
+Then, too, we may begin to discard that rather vapid class of
+literature, the popular flower-book, which too often deals sentimentally
+in vague descriptions of plants, diversified with bad illustrations, and
+with edifying remarks about the goodness of the Creator, and may find a
+new and more rational interest in the published _Floras_ of such
+counties or districts as have yet received that distinction. For dry
+though it is in form, a _Flora_, with its classified list of plants, and
+its notes collected from many sources, past and present, as to their
+"stations" in the county, becomes an almost romantic book of adventure,
+when the student can supply the details from his own knowledge, and so
+read with illumination "between the lines." Here, let us suppose it to
+be said, is a locality where grows some rare and beautiful flower, one
+of the prizes of the chase. What hopes and aspirations such an assurance
+may arouse! What encouragement to future enterprise! What regrets, it
+may be, for some almost forgotten omission in the past, which left that
+very neighbourhood unsearched! It is possible that a cold,
+matter-of-fact entry in a local _Flora_ will thus throw a sudden light
+on some bygone expedition, and show us that if we had but taken a
+slightly different direction in our walk--but it is vain to lament what
+is irreparable!
+
+Of such musings upon the might-have-been I can myself speak with
+feeling, for I was not so fortunate in my youth as to be initiated into
+the knowledge of flowers: it was not till much later in life, as I
+wandered among the Welsh and English mountains, that the scales fell
+from my eyes, and looking on the beauty of the saxifrages I realized
+what glories I had missed. Thus I was compelled to put myself to school,
+so to speak, and to make a study of wildflowers with the aid of such
+books as were available, a process which, like a botanical Jude the
+Obscure, I found by no means easy. The self-educated man, we know, is
+apt to be perverse and opinionated; so I trust my readers will make due
+allowance if they notice such faults in this book. I can truly plead, as
+the illiterate do, that "I'm no scholar, more's the pity." But it was my
+friends and acquaintances--those, at least, who had some botanical
+knowledge--who were the chief sufferers during this period of inquiry;
+and, looking back, I often marvel at the patience with which they
+endured the problems with which I confronted them. I remember waylaying
+my friend, W. J. Jupp, a very faithful flower-lover, with some mutilated
+and unrecognizable labiate plant which I thought might be calamint, and
+how tactfully he suggested that my conjecture was "near enough." On
+another occasion it was Edward Carpenter, the Sage of Millthorpe, or
+Wild Sage, as some botanical friend once irreverently described him,
+who volunteered to assist me, by means of a scientific book which shows,
+by an unerring process, how to eliminate the wrong flowers, until at the
+end you are left with the right one duly named. All through the list we
+went; but there must have been a slip somewhere; for in the conclusion
+one thing alone was clear--that whatever my plant might be, it was not
+that which the scientific book indicated. Of all my friends and helpers,
+Bertram Lloyd, whose acquaintance with wildflowers is unusually large,
+and to whom, in all that pertains to natural history, I am as the "gray
+barbarian" (_vide_ Tennyson) to "the Christian child," was the most
+constant and long-suffering: he solved many of my enigmas, and
+introduced me to some of his choicest flower-haunts among the Chiltern
+Hills. In the course of my researches I was sometimes referred for
+guidance to persons who were known in their respective home-circles as
+"the botanists of the family," a title which I found was not quite
+equivalent to that of "the complete botanist." There was one "botanist
+of the family" who was visibly embarrassed when I asked her the name of
+a plant that is common on the chalk hills, but is so carelessly
+described in the books as to be easily confused with other kindred
+species. She gazed at it long, with a troubled eye, and then, as if
+feeling that her domestic reputation must at all hazards be upheld,
+replied firmly: "Hemp-nettle." Hemp-nettle it was not; it was wild
+basil; but years after, when I began to have similar questions put to
+myself, I realized how disconcerting it is to be thus suddenly
+interrogated. It made me understand why Cabinet Ministers so frequently
+insist that they must have "notice of that Question." With one complete
+botanist, however, I was privileged to become acquainted, Mr. C. E.
+Salmon, whose special diocese, so to speak, is the county of Surrey, but
+whose intimate knowledge of wildflowers extends to many counties and
+coasts. Not a few favours did I receive from him, in certifying for me
+some of the more puzzling plants; and very good-naturedly he bore the
+disappointment when, on his asking me to send him, for his _Flora of
+Surrey_, a list of the rarer flowers in the neighbourhood where I was
+living, I included among them the small bur-parsley (_caucalis
+daucoides_), a vanished native, a prodigal son of the county, whose
+return would have been a matter for gladness. But alas, my plant was not
+a _caucalis_ at all, but a _torilis_, a squat weed of the cornfields,
+which by its superficial resemblance to its rare cousin had grossly
+imposed upon my ignorance. It is when he has acquired some familiarity
+with the ordinary British plants that a flower-lover, thus educated late
+in life, finds his thoughts turning to the vanished opportunities of the
+past. I used to speculate regretfully on what I had missed in my early
+wanderings in wild places; as in the Isle of Skye, where I picked up the
+eagle's feather, but overlooked the mountain flower; or on Ben Lawers,
+a summit rich in rare Alpines to which I then was stone-blind; or in a
+score of other localities which I can scarcely hope to revisit. But
+time, which heals all things, brought me a sort of compensation for
+these delinquencies; for with a fuller knowledge of plants I could to
+some extent reconstruct in imagination the sights that were formerly
+unseen, and with the eye of faith admire the Alpine forget-me-not on the
+ridges of Ben Lawers, or the yellow butterwort in the marshes of Skye.
+Nor was it always in imagination only; for sometimes a friend would send
+me a rare flower from some distant spot; and then there was pleasure
+indeed in the opening of the parcel and in anticipating what it might
+contain--the pasque-flower perhaps, or the wild tulip, or the Adonis, or
+the golden samphire, or some other of the many local treasures that make
+glad the flower-lover's heart. The exhibitions of wildflowers that are
+now held in the public libraries of not a few towns are extremely
+useful, and often awake a love of nature in minds where it has hitherto
+been but dormant. A queer remark was once made to me by a visitor at the
+Brighton show. "This is a good institution," he said. "It saves you from
+tramping for the flowers yourself." I had not regarded the exhibition in
+that light; on the contrary, it stimulates many persons to a pursuit
+which is likely to fascinate them more and more.
+
+For no tramps can be pleasanter than those in quest of wildflowers;
+especially if one has a fellow-enthusiast for companion: failing that,
+it is wiser to go alone; for when a flower-lover tramps with someone who
+has no interest in the pursuit, the result is likely to be
+discomfiting--he must either forgo his own haltings and deviations, with
+the probability that he will miss something valuable, or he must feel
+that he is delaying his friend. In a company, I always pray that their
+number may be uneven, and that it may not be necessary to march stolidly
+in pairs, where "one to one is cursedly confined," as Dryden said of
+matrimony; or worst of all, where one's yoke-fellow may insist, as
+sometimes happens, on walking "in step," and be forever shuffling his
+feet as if obeying the commands of some invisible drill-sergeant. It is
+not with the feet that we should seek harmony, but with the heart. My
+intention in this book is to speak of the more noteworthy flowers of a
+few distinctive localities that are known to me, starting from the coast
+of Sussex, and ascending to the high mountains of Wales and the
+north-west: I propose also to intersperse the descriptive chapters, here
+and there with discussions of such special topics as may incidentally
+arise. And here, at the outset, I was tempted to say a few words about
+my own favourite flowers--not such universally admired beauties as the
+primrose, violet, daffodil, hyacinth, forget-me-not, and the others,
+whose names will readily suggest themselves; for, lovely as they are,
+it would be superfluous to add to their praises; but rather of some less
+famous plants, the saints and anchorites of the floral world, the
+flower-lover's flowers--not the popular, but the best-beloved. On second
+thoughts, however, I will leave these choicest ones, with a single
+exception, to be mentioned in their due place and surroundings, and will
+here name but one of them, a flower which is among the first, not only
+in the order of merit, but in the order of the seasons.
+
+The greater stitchwort, as writers tell us, is one of "the most
+ornamental of our early flowers"; but surely it is something more than
+that. The radiance of those white stars that stud the hedge-banks and
+road-sides in April and May, is dearer to some of us than many of the
+more favoured blossoms that poets have sung of. The dull English name
+quite fails to do justice to the almost ethereal lustre of the flower:
+the Latin _stellaria_ is truer and more expressive. The reappearance of
+the stitchwort, like that of the orange-tip butterfly, is one of the
+keenest joys of spring; and one of our keenest regrets in spring is that
+the stitchwort's flowering-season is so short.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ON SUSSEX SHINGLES
+
+    Salt and splendid from the circling brine.
+
+    SWINBURNE.
+
+
+WHERE should a flower-lover begin his story if not from the sea shore?
+Earth has been poetically described as "daughter of ocean"; and the
+proximity of the sea has a most genial and stimulating effect upon its
+grandchildren the flowers, not those only that are peculiar to the
+beach, but also the inland kinds. There is no "dead sea" lack of
+vegetation on our coasts, but a marked increase both in the luxuriance
+of plants and in their beauty.
+
+Sussex is rich in "shingles"--flat expanses of loose pebbles formerly
+thrown up by the waves, and now lying well above high-water mark, or
+even stretching landward for some distance. One might have expected
+these stony tracts to be barren in the extreme; in fact they are the
+nursery-ground of a number of interesting flowers, including some very
+rare ones; and in certain places, where the stones are intersected by
+banks of turf, the eye is surprised by a veritable garden in the
+wilderness. Let us imagine ourselves on one of these shingle-beds in the
+early summer, when the show of flowers is at its brightest: and first at
+Shoreham--"Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years," as Swinburne
+described it.
+
+Alas! the Shoreham beach, which until less than twenty years ago was in
+a natural state, has been so overbuilt with ship-works and bungalows
+that it has become little else than a suburb of Brighton; yet even now
+the remaining strip of shingle, stretching for half a mile between sea
+and harbour, is the home of some delightful plants. In the more favoured
+spots the gay mantle thrown over the stony strand is visible at the
+first glance in a wonderful blending of colours--the gold of horned
+poppy, stonecrop, melilot, and kidney vetch; the white of sea-campion;
+the delicate pink of thrift; and the fiery reds and blues of the
+gorgeous viper's bugloss--and when a nearer scrutiny is made, a number
+of minute plants will be found growing in close company along the grassy
+ridges. The most attractive of these are the graceful little spring
+vetch (_vicia lathyroides_), the rue-leaved saxifrage, and that tiny
+turquoise gem which is apt to escape notice, the dwarf forget-me-not--a
+trio of the daintiest blossoms, red, white, and blue, that eyes could
+desire to behold.
+
+Shoreham has long been famous for its clovers; and some are still in
+great force there, especially the rigid trefoil (_trifolium scabrum_),
+and its congener, _trifolium striatum_, with which it is often confused,
+while the better-known hare's-foot also covers a good deal of the
+ground. But there is a sad tale to tell of the plant which once the
+chief pride of these shingles, the starry-headed trefoil, a very lovely
+pink flower fringed with silky hairs, which, though not a native, has
+been naturalized near the bank of the harbour since 1804, but now, owing
+to the enclosures made for ship-building works, has been all but
+exterminated. "This," wrote the author of the _Flora of Sussex_ (1907)
+"is one of the most beautiful of our wildflowers, and is found in
+Britain at Shoreham only. Fortunately it is very difficult to extirpate
+any of the _leguminosæ_, and it may therefore be hoped that it may long
+continue to adorn the beach at Shoreham." The hope seems likely to be
+frustrated. Among the rubble of concrete slabs, and piles of timber,
+only three or four tufts of the trefoil were surviving last year, with
+every likelihood of these also disappearing as the place is further
+"developed." The second of the Shoreham rarities, the pale yellow vetch
+(_vicia lutea_) has fared better, owing to its wider range, and is still
+scattered freely over the yet unenclosed shingles. It is a charming
+flower; but its doom in Sussex seems to be inevitable, for the
+bungalows, with their back-yards, tennis-courts, "tradesmen's
+entrances," and other amenities of villadom, will doubtless continue to
+encroach upon what was once a wild and unsullied tract.
+
+Still sadder is the fate of the devastated coast on the Brighton side of
+the harbour-mouth, where the low cliffs that overlook the lagoon from
+Southwick to Fisher's-gate have long been known to botanists as worthy
+of some attention. Here, on the grassy escarpment, the rare Bithynian
+vetch used once to grow, as we learn from Mrs. Merrifield's interesting
+_Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton_ (1860); and here we may
+still find such plants as the sea-radish, a large coarse crucifer with
+yellow flowers and queer knotted seed-pods; the blue clary, or
+wild-sage, running riot in great profusion; the fragrant soft-leaved
+fennel; the strange star-thistle (_calcitrapa_), so-called from its
+fancied resemblance to an ancient and diabolical military instrument,
+the caltrop, an iron ball armed with sharp points, which was thrown on
+the ground to maim the horses in a cavalry charge; the pale-flowered
+narrow-leaved flax; and lastly, that rather uncanny shrub of the
+poisonous nightshade order, with small purple flowers and scarlet
+berries, which is called the "tea-tree," though the tea which its leaves
+might furnish would hardly make a palatable brew.
+
+Below these cliffs, on an embankment that divides the waters of the
+lagoon from the seashore, there still flourishes in plenty the fleshy
+leaved samphire, once sought after for a pickle, and ever famous through
+the reference in _King Lear_ to "one who gathers samphire, dreadful
+trade." In this locality there is no dreadful trade, except that of
+reducing a once pleasant shore to an unsightly slag-heap.
+
+Let me now turn from this melancholy spectacle to those Sussex shingles
+on which the Admiralty and the contractor have not as yet laid a heavy
+and ruinous hand. On some of the more spacious of these pebbly beaches,
+as on that which lies between Eastbourne and Pevensey, the traveller may
+still experience the feeling expressed by Shelley:
+
+        I love all waste
+    And solitary places, where we taste
+    The pleasure of believing what we see
+    Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
+
+From Langney Point one looks north-east along a desolate shore, beyond
+which the ruins of Pevensey Castle are seen in the distance, and the
+width of the shingly belt between the sea and the high-road is at this
+point scarcely less than a mile. A scene that is bleak and barren enough
+in its general aspect; but a search soon reveals the presence of floral
+treasures, the first of which is a rather rare member of the Pink
+family, the soapwort, which I had long sought in vain until I met with
+it growing in abundance close to the outskirts of Eastbourne, where it
+roots so luxuriantly in the loose shingles as to make one wonder why it
+is so fastidious elsewhere. Among other noticeable inhabitants of these
+flats, or of the shallow marshy depressions which they enclose, are
+hairy crowfoot, catmint, white melilot, stinking groundsel,
+strawberry-headed trefoil, and candytuft--the last-named a rather
+unexpected flower in such a place.
+
+Still nearer to the sea, not many yards removed from the spray of the
+waves at their highest, the wild seakale is plentiful; a stout glabrous
+cabbage, with thick curly leaves and white cruciferous blossoms, it
+rises straight out of the bare stones, and thrives exceedingly when the
+folk who stroll along the shore can so far restrain their destructive
+tendencies as not to hack and mangle it. In its company, perhaps, or in
+similar situations, will be seen its first-cousin, the sea-rocket, a
+quaint and pleasant crucifer with zigzag stems, fleshy leaves, and pale
+lilac petals. The sea-pea, formerly native near Pevensey, is now hardly
+to be hoped for.
+
+One of the most naturally attractive spots on the Sussex coast is
+Cuckmere Haven, near Seaford, a gap in the chalk cliffs, about half a
+mile in width, through which the river Cuckmere finds a dubious exit to
+the sea. Were it not for the abomination of the rifle-butts, which
+sometimes close the shore to the public, no more delectable nook could
+be desired; and to the flower-lover the little shelf of shingle which
+forms the beach is full of charm. Here, growing along the grassy margin
+of brackish pools, and itself so like a flowering grass that a sharp eye
+is needed to detect it, one may find that singular umbelliferous
+plant--not at all resembling the other members of its tribe--the slender
+hare's-ear (_bupleurum tenuissimum_), thin, wiry, dark-green, with
+narrow lance-like leaves and minute yellow umbels. Near by, the small
+sea-heath, one of the prettiest of maritime flowers, makes a dense
+carpet; on the corner of the adjacent cliff the lesser and rarer
+sea-lavender (_statice binervosa_) is plentiful, and in the late summer
+blooms at a considerable height on the narrow ledges.
+
+Pagham "Harbour," a wild estuary of some extent, between Selsey and
+Bognor, is another locality that has earned a reputation for its
+flowers, the most remarkable of which is the very local proliferous
+pink, which has long been known as abundant on that portion of the
+coast, though elsewhere very infrequent. A pleasant walk of about three
+miles leads from Bognor to Pagham, along a sandy shore fringed with very
+luxuriant tamarisk-bushes; and when one reaches the stony reef where
+further progress is barred by the waters or sand-shoals of the
+"Harbour," the little pink, which bears a superficial resemblance to
+thrift, will be seen springing up freely among the pebbles. We are told
+that only one of its blossoms opens at a time; but this is the sort of
+statement, often copied from book to book, which is not verified by
+experience, or to which at least many exceptions must be admitted. What
+is certain is that the proliferous pink has a considerable share of the
+distinctive grace of its family, and that the occasion of first
+encountering it will live in the flower-lover's memory.
+
+I have named but a few--those personally known to me--of the rarer or
+more characteristic shingle-flowers; and in so wide a field there is
+always the chance of new discoveries: hence the unfailing interest, to
+the botanist, of places which, apart from their flora, are likely to be
+shunned as wearisome. The shore itself is seldom without visitors; but
+the shingles that stretch back from the shore rarely attract the
+footsteps even of the hardiest walkers. It is only when there has been a
+murder in one of those solitary spots--or at least something that the
+newspapers can describe as "dramatic" or "sensational"--that the
+holiday-folk in the neighbouring towns forsake for a day or two the
+pleasures of pier or parade, and sally forth over the stony wildernesses
+in a search for "clues"; as when the "Crumbles," near Eastbourne, was
+the scene, two years ago, of a murder, and at a later date of a ghost.
+To discover the foot of some partially buried victim protruding from the
+pebbles--_that_ is deemed a sufficient object for a pilgrimage. The gold
+of the sea-poppy and the pink of the thrift are trifles that are passed
+unseen.
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+BY DITCH AND DIKE
+
+          On either side
+    Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide.
+
+    CRABBE.
+
+
+"LEVELS," or "brooks," is the name commonly given in Sussex to a number
+of grassy tracts, often of wide extent, which, though still in a state
+of semi-wildness, have been so far reclaimed from primitive fens as to
+afford a rough pasturage for horses and herds of cattle, the ground
+being drained and intersected by dikes and sluggish streams. In these
+spacious and unfrequented flats wildfowl of various kinds are often to
+be seen; herons stand motionless by the pools, or flap slowly away if
+disturbed in their meditation; pewits wheel and cry overhead; and the
+redshank, most clamorous of birds during the nesting-season, makes such
+a din as almost to distract the attention of the intruding botanist. For
+it is the botanist who is specially drawn to these wild water-ways,
+where hours may be profitably spent in strolling beside the brooks, with
+the certainty of seeing many interesting plants and the chance of
+finding some unfamiliar ones; nor is there anything to mar his
+enjoyment, except the possible meeting with a bull on a wide arena from
+which there is no ready exit, save by jumping a muddy ditch or by
+crossing one of the narrow and precarious planks which do duty as
+footbridges.
+
+These "levels," though often bordering on a tidal river, are not
+themselves salt marshes, nor is their flora a maritime one; in that
+respect they differ from the East-coast fens described by Crabbe in one
+of his _Tales_, "The Lover's Journey"; a passage which has been praised
+as one of the best pictures ever given of dike-land scenery. There are
+lines in it which might be quoted of the Sussex as well as of the
+Suffolk marsh-meadows; but for me the verses are spoiled by the
+strangely apologetic tone which the poet assumed in speaking of the
+local plants:
+
+    The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread
+    Partake the nature of their fenny bed.
+
+And so on. Did he think that his polite readers expected to hear of
+sweet peas and carnations beautifying the desolate mud-banks? The
+"dulness" seems to be--well, not on the part of the flowers. "Dull as
+ditchwater," they say. But ditchwater flowers are far from dull.
+
+Of Sussex marshes the most extensive are the Pevensey Levels; but the
+most pleasantly situated are those that lie just south of Lewes, where
+the valley of the Ouse widens into an oval plain before it narrows
+again towards Newhaven. From the central part of this alluvial basin the
+view is very striking all around; for the estuary seems to be everywhere
+enclosed, except to seaward, by the great smooth slopes of the chalk
+Downs. On its west side are three picturesque villages, Iford, Rodmell,
+and Southease, with churches and farms lying on the very verge of the
+"brooks": at the head, the quaint old houses and castle of Lewes rise
+conspicuous like a mediæval town.
+
+But to whichever of these watery wastes the flower-lover betakes
+himself, he will not lack for occupation. One of the first friends to
+greet him in the early summer, by the Lewes levels, will be the charming
+_Hottonia_, or "water-violet," as it is misnamed; for though the petals
+are pink, its yellow eye and general form proclaim it to be of the
+_primulaceæ_, and "water-primrose" should by preference be its title.
+There are few prettier sights than a company of these elegant flowers
+rising clear above the surface, their slender stems bearing whorls of
+the pink blossoms, while the dark green featherlike leaves remain
+submerged. This "featherfoil," as it is sometimes called, is as lovely
+as the primrose of the woods.
+
+Companions or near neighbours of the _Hottonia_ are the arrow-head, at
+once recognized by its bold sagittate leaves, and the frog-bit, another
+flower of three white petals, whose small reniform foliage, floating on
+the brooks, gives it the appearance of a dwarf water-lily. By no means
+common, but growing in profusion where it grows at all, the dainty
+little frog-bit, once met with, always remains a favourite. The true
+water-lilies, both the white and the yellow, are also native on the
+levels; so, too, is the quaint water-milfoil, with its much-cut
+submerged leaves resembling those of the featherfoil, and its numerous
+erect flower-spikes dotting the surface of the pools. All these
+water-nymphs may be seen simultaneously blossoming in June.
+
+More prominent than such small aquatics are the tall-growing kinds which
+lift their heads two or three feet above the waters. Of these quite the
+handsomest is the flowering rush (_butomus_), stately and pink-petaled;
+among the rest are the two water-plantains (the lesser one rather
+uncommon); the water-speedwell, a gross and bulky _veronica_ which lacks
+the charm of its smaller relative the brook-lime; and the queer
+mare's-tails, which in the midst of a running stream look like a number
+of tiny fir-trees out of their element. The umbelliferous family is also
+well represented. Wild celery is there; and the showy water-parsnip
+(_sium_); the graceful tubular water-dropwort, and its big neighbour the
+horse-bane, which in some places swells to an immense size in the centre
+of the ditches. On the margin grows the pretty trailing money-wort, or
+"creeping Jenny"; and with it, maybe, the white-blossomed brook-weed, or
+water-pimpernel, which at first sight has more likeness to the
+crucifers than to its real relatives the primroses, and is thus apt to
+puzzle those by whom it has not previously been encountered.
+
+Rambling beside these so-called brooks, which are mostly not brooks but
+channels of almost stagnant water, one cannot fail to remark the
+clannishness of many of the flowers: they grow in groups, monopolizing
+nearly the whole length of a ditch, and making a show by their united
+array of leaves or blossoms. In one part, perhaps, the slim water-violet
+predominates; then, as you turn a corner, a long vista of arrow-heads
+meets the eye, nothing but arrow-heads between bank and bank, their
+sharp, barbed foliage topping the surface in a phalanx: or again, you
+may come upon fifty yards of frog-bit, a multitude of small green
+bucklers that entirely hide the water; or a radiant colony of
+water-lilies, whose broad leaves make the intrusion of other aquatics
+scarcely possible, and provide a cool pavement for wagtail and moorhen
+to walk on. It is noticeable, too, that the lesser water-plantain,
+unlike the greater, is almost confined to one section of the levels; and
+in like manner the brook-weed and the burmarigold have each occupied for
+their headquarters the banks of a particular dike.
+
+The fringed buckbean (_villarsia_) is said to be an inhabitant of these
+brooks. I have not seen it there; but it may be found, sparsely, in the
+river Ouse, a short distance above Lewes, where its round leaves float
+on the quiet backwaters like those of a large frog-bit or a small
+water-lily, though the botanists tell us it is a gentian. I remember
+that on the first occasion when I saw it there, on a late summer day,
+there was only a single blossom left, and as that was on a deep pool,
+several yards from the bank, there was no choice but to swim for it. The
+great yellow cress (_nasturtium amphibium_), a glorified cousin of the
+familiar water-cress, is also native on the Ouse above Lewes, less
+frequently below.
+
+More spacious than the Lewes levels, but drearier, and on the whole less
+interesting, are those of Pevensey, which cover a wide tract to the east
+of Hailsham, formerly an inlet of the sea, where the sites of the few
+homesteads that rise above the flat meadows, such as Chilley and
+Horse-eye, were once islands in the bay. Walking north from Pevensey, by
+a road which traverses this inhospitable flat, one sees the walls of
+Hurstmonceux Castle in front, on what was originally the coast-line; on
+either side of the highway is a maze of ditches and dikes, among which
+rare flowers are to be found, notably the broad-leaved pepperwort, the
+largest and most remarkable of its family, and the great spearwort, said
+to be locally plentiful near Hurstmonceux. The bladderwort, reputed
+common on these marshes, seems to have become much scarcer than it was
+twenty years back.
+
+For other flowers, other fenny tracts may be sought; Henfield Common,
+for instance, has the bog-bean, the marsh St. John's-wort, and still
+better, the marsh-cinquefoil. But of all Sussex water-meadows with which
+I am acquainted the richest are the Amberley Wild Brooks, which lie
+below Pulborough, adjacent to the tidal stream of the Arun, a piece of
+partially drained bog-land which in a wet winter season is apt to be
+flooded anew, and to revert to its primitive state of swamp. It is a
+glorious place to wander over, on a sunny August afternoon, with the
+great escarpment of the Downs, and the ever-prominent Chanctonbury Ring,
+close in view to the south; and in a long summer day the expedition can
+be combined with a visit to Arundel Park, only three miles distant, the
+best of parks, as being the least parklike and most natural, and having
+a goodly store of the wildflowers that are dwellers upon chalk hills.
+
+The Amberley Wild Brooks possess this great merit, that in addition to
+most of the aquatics and dike-land plants above-mentioned, they present
+a fine display of the tall riverside flowers. Their wet hollows that
+teem with frog-bit, arrow-head, water-parsnip, water-plantain, yellow
+cress, glaucous stitchwort, and other choice things, are fringed here
+and there with purple loosestrife, and with marsh-woundwort almost equal
+to the loosestrife in size and colour; and mingling with these in like
+luxuriance are yellow loosestrife, tansy, toadflax, and water-ragwort--a
+brilliant combination of purple flowers and gold. Then, as if the
+better to set off this spectacle, there is in some places a background
+of staid and massive herbs like the great water-dock,
+
+    And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
+    As soothe the dazzled eye with sober sheen.[3]
+
+One would fear that this wealth of diverse hues might even become
+embarrassing, were it not that the heart of the flower-lover is
+insatiable.
+
+[Footnote 3: From Shelley's short lyric, "The Question," perhaps the
+most beautiful flower-poem in the language.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE
+
+    Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.
+
+    _The Comedy of Errors._
+
+
+ONE of the first difficulties by which those who would learn their
+native flora are beset is the likeness which in some cases exists
+between one plant and another--not the close resemblance of kindred
+species, such as that found, for instance, among the brambles or the
+hawkweeds, which is necessarily a matter for expert discrimination, but
+the superficial yet often puzzling similarity in what botanists call the
+"habit" of wildflowers. Thus the horse-shoe vetch may easily be
+mistaken, by a beginner, for the bird's-foot trefoil, or the field
+mouse-ear chickweed for the greater stitchwort; and the differences
+between the dove's-foot crane's-bill and the less common _geranium
+pusillum_ are not at first sight very apparent. Distinguishing features
+instantly recognized by an expert, who has taken, so to speak,
+finger-tip impressions of the plants, do not readily present themselves
+to the layman, whose only guide is the general testimony of structure,
+colour, and height.
+
+It is, moreover, unfortunate that some of the popular flower-books,
+owing to the slovenly way in which their descriptions are worded, are of
+little help; they not only fail to give the needed particulars where
+there is a real likeness, but often, where there is none, create
+confusion in the reader's mind by depicting quite dissimilar plants in
+almost identical terms. In Johns's _Flowers of the Field_ (edition of
+1908), for example, the description of hedge-woundwort hardly differs
+verbally from that of black horehound, and might certainly mislead a
+novice who was studying hedgerow flowers. The same writer had an
+exasperating habit of repeatedly stating that various plants are "well
+distinguished" by certain features, when in fact it is very difficult,
+from the accounts given by him, to distinguish them at all!
+
+An earlier and better writer, Anne Pratt, did make an effort in her
+_Haunts of the Wild Flowers_ to indicate the chief characteristics, as
+between the sea-plantain and the sea-arrowgrass, the hemp-agrimony and
+the valerian; but even she, when some of the labiate flowers were in
+question, dismissed them, not very helpfully, as "all growing in
+abundance, but so much alike that it needs a knowledge of botany to
+distinguish them from each other"! I have known a case where, owing to a
+picturesque but inaccurate account, in the same book, the Welsh
+stonecrop (_sedum Forsterianum_) was confused with the marsh St.
+John's-wort, which has leaves that bear a curious resemblance to those
+of the _sedum_ tribe.
+
+Even writers of botanical handbooks seem not to realize with what
+difficulties the uninitiated are faced, in regard to certain groups of
+plants where the several species, though quite distinct, bear a strong
+family likeness. The chamomiles, for instance, might well receive some
+special treatment in books; for it is no simple matter to assign their
+proper names to some four or five of the clan--the true chamomile, the
+wild chamomile, the corn chamomile, the stinking chamomile, and the
+"scentless" mayweed, which is _not_ scentless. Many of the umbellifers
+also are notoriously difficult to identify; and among leguminous plants
+there is a bewildering similarity between black medick, or "nonsuch,"
+and the lesser clover (_trifolium minus_), which in turn is liable to be
+confused with the popular hop-clover or with the slender and fairy-like
+_trifolium filiforme_. "Small examples of _t. minus_," said a well-known
+botanist, Mr. H. C. Watson, "are so frequently misnamed _t. filiforme_,
+that I trust only my own eyes for it."[4] "As like as two peas" is a
+saying which finds fulfilment in these and other examples.
+
+[Footnote 4: _Flora of Surrey_, by J. A. Brewer, 1863.]
+
+The clovers are indeed a perplexing family; and it is not surprising
+that the identification of the "shamrock" has given cause for dispute.
+Two of the smaller trefoils, for example, _trifolium scabrum_ and
+_striatum_, so closely resemble each other that a novice fails to
+appreciate the assurance given in the _Flora of Kent_ that they "can
+very easily be separated." It is doubtless easy to separate one twin
+from another twin, Dromio of Ephesus from Dromio of Syracuse, when once
+you know how to do so; but until you have acquired that knowledge there
+is material for a "comedy of errors." The majority of folk are much more
+apt to confuse plants than to distinguish them: witness such names as
+"fool's-parsley" and "fool's-watercress." Fools there are; yet anyone
+who has spent time in studying wildflowers, with no better aid than that
+of the popular books on the subject, will hesitate to pass judgment on
+such folly; for as so good an observer as Richard Jefferies said: "If
+you really wish to identify with certainty, and have no botanist friend
+and no _magnum opus_ of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult indeed
+to be quite sure."[5] We have to be thankful for small mercies in this
+matter; and it may be recognized that in some cases--generally where the
+similarity is _not_ great, as that between the strawberry-leaved
+cinquefoil and the wild strawberry, or between the feverfew and the
+scentless mayweed--the books occasionally give a word of advice to "the
+young botanist." Nine times out of ten, however, that young fellow, or
+perchance old fellow (for one may be young as a botanist, while by no
+means young in years), must shift for himself; and doing so, he will
+gradually learn by experience what a number of likenesses there are
+among plants, and how many mistakes may be made before a sure
+acquaintance is arrived at.
+
+[Footnote 5: Essay on "Wild Flowers," in _The Open Air_.]
+
+The name of "mockers" is sometimes given by gardeners to weeds that are
+so like certain valued plants as to be easily mistaken for them; and in
+the same way, in the search for wildflowers, one's attention is often
+distracted, as, for instance, if one is looking for the spineless
+meadow-thistle, the eye may be baffled by innumerable knapweed blossoms
+of the same hue; the clustered bell-flower will feign to be the autumnal
+gentian, its neighbour on the chalk downs; or the blossoms and leaves of
+the purple saxifrage on the high mountains are aped by the ubiquitous
+wild thyme.
+
+Of all these likenesses the most perilous is that between the malodorous
+ramsons, which have a very abiding smell of garlic, and the highly
+esteemed lily of the valley. Hence a story which I once heard from the
+affable keeper who presides over a wooded hill in Westmorland where the
+lily of the valley abounds, and where visitors are permitted to pick as
+many flowers as they like after payment of a shilling. Seeing a
+gentleman busily engaged in gathering a large bunch of ramsons, the
+keeper, suspecting error, asked him what he supposed himself to be
+picking. "Why, lilies of the valley, of course," was the reply. When the
+truth was explained, the visitor thanked the keeper cordially, and
+added: "I was picking the flowers for my wife: but if I had brought her
+a present of garlic she would have had something to say to me. I myself
+have lost the sense of smell."[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: So, too, had the poet Wordsworth; of whom William Morris,
+who disliked the Wordsworthian cult, used to say, in explanation of such
+antipathy: "The fellow couldn't smell."]
+
+Likeness or unlikeness--it is all a matter of observation. To a
+stranger, every sheep in the flock has a face like that of her fellows:
+to the shepherd there are no two sheep alike.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+BOTANESQUE
+
+    What is it? a learned man
+      Could give it a clumsy name.
+    Let him name it who can,
+      The beauty would be the same.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+AMONG the difficulties that waylay the beginner must be reckoned the
+botanical phraseology. We have heard of "the language of flowers," and
+of its romantic associations; but the language of botany is another
+matter, and though less picturesque is equally cryptic and not to be
+mastered without study.
+
+When, for example, we read of a certain umbelliferous plant that its
+"cremocarp consists of two semicircular-ovoid mericarps, constricted at
+the commissure"--or when, with our lives in our hands, so to speak, we
+experiment in fungus-eating, and learn that a particular mushroom has
+its stem "fistulose, subsquamulose, its pileus membranaceous, rarely
+subcarnose, when young ovato-conic, then campanulate, at length torn and
+revolute, deliquescent, and clothed with the flocculose fragments of
+the veil"--we probably feel that some further information would be
+welcome.
+
+A friend who had been reading a series of articles on botany once
+remarked to me that "they could scarcely be said to be written in any
+known language, but were in a new tongue which might perhaps be called
+Botanesque."
+
+But it is of the botanesque nomenclature that I now wish to speak. The
+faculty of bestowing appropriate names is at all times a gift, an
+inspiration, most happy when least laboured, and often eluding the
+efforts of learned and scientific men. By schoolboys it is sometimes
+exhibited in perfection; as in a case that I remember at a public
+school, where three brothers of the name of Berry were severally known,
+for personal reasons, as Bilberry, Blackberry, and Gooseberry, the
+fitness of which botanical titles was never for a moment impugned.
+
+But botanists rarely invent names so well. The nomenclature of plants,
+like that of those celestial flowers, the stars, is a queer jumble of
+ancient and modern, classical learning and mediæval folk-lore, in which
+the really characteristic features are often overlooked. In this respect
+the Latin names are worse offenders than the English; and one is
+sometimes tempted, in disgust at their pedantic irrelevance, to ignore
+them altogether, and to exclaim with the poet:
+
+    What's in a name? That which we call a rose
+    By any other name would smell as sweet.
+
+But this would be an error; for a name does greatly enhance the interest
+of an object, be it boy, or bird, or flower; and the Greek and Latin
+plant-names, cumbrous and far-fetched though many of them are--as when
+the saintfoin is absurdly labelled _onobrychis_, on the supposition that
+its scent provokes an ass to bray--form, nevertheless, a useful link
+between botanists of different nations and a safeguard against the
+confusion that arises from a variety of local terms.
+
+Among the English names also there are some clumsy appellations, and in
+a few cases the Latin ones are much pleasanter: _stellaria_, for
+example, as I have already said, is more elegant than "stitchwort."
+"What have I done?" asks the small cousin of the woodruff, in Edward
+Carpenter's poem, when it justly protests against its hideous
+christening by man:
+
+    What have I done? Man came,
+      Evolutional upstart one,
+    With the gift of giving a name
+      To everything under the sun.
+    What have I done? Man came
+      (They say nothing sticks like dirt),
+    Looked at me with eyes of blame,
+      And called me "Squinancy-wort."
+
+But on the whole the English names of flowers are simpler and more
+suggestive than the Latin; certainly "monk's-hood" is preferable to
+_aconitum_, "rest-harrow" to _ononis_, "flowering rush" to _butomus_;
+and so on, through a long list: and it therefore seems rather strange
+that the native titles should sometimes be ousted by the foreign. I have
+met botanists who had quite forgotten the English, and were obliged to
+ask me for the scientific term before they could sufficiently recall the
+plant of which we were speaking.
+
+The prefix "common" is often very misleading in the English
+nomenclature. Anyone, for example, who should go confidently searching
+for the "common hare's-ear" would soon find that he had got his work cut
+out. There are, in fact, not many plants that are everywhere common;
+most of those that are so described should properly be classed as
+_local_, because, while plentiful in some districts, they are infrequent
+in others.
+
+Botanical names fall mainly into three classes, the medicinal, the
+commemorative, the descriptive. The old uses of plants by the herbalists
+mark the prosaic origin of many of the names; some of which, such as
+"goutweed," at once explain themselves, as indicating supposed remedies
+for ills that flesh is heir to. Others, if less obvious, are still not
+far to seek; the "scabious," for example, derived from the Latin
+_scabies_, was reputed to be a cure for leprosy: a few, like
+"eye-bright" (_euphrasia_, gladness), have a more cheerful significance.
+When we turn to such titles as _centaurea_, for the knapweed and
+cornflower, some explanation is needed, to wit, that Chiron, the
+fabulous centaur, was said to have employed these herbs in the exercise
+of his healing art.
+
+The commemorative names are mostly given in honour of accomplished
+botanists, it being a habit of mankind, presumably prompted by the
+acquisitive instincts of the race, to name any object, great or
+small--from a mountain to a mouse--as _belonging_ to the person who
+discovered or brought it to notice. In the case of wildflowers this is
+not always a very felicitous system of distinguishing them, though
+perhaps better than the utilitarian jargon of the pharmacopoeia.
+Sometimes, indeed, it is beyond cavil; as in the fit association of the
+little _linnæa borealis_ with the great botanist who loved it; but when
+a number of the less important professors of the science are
+immortalized in this way, there seems to be something rather irrelevant,
+if not absurd, in such nomenclature. Why, for example, should two of the
+more charming crucifers be named respectively _Hutchinsia_ and
+_Teesdalia_, after a Miss Hutchins and a Mr. Teesdale? Why should the
+water-primrose be called _Hottonia_, after a Professor Hotton; or the
+sea-heath _Frankenia_, after a Swedish botanist named Franken; and so
+on, in a score of other cases that might be cited? The climax is reached
+when the _rubi_ and the _salices_ are divided into a host of more or
+less dubious sub-species, so that a Bloxam may have his bramble, and a
+Hoffmann his willow, as a possession for all time!
+
+The most rational, and also the most graceful manner of naming flowers
+is the descriptive; and here, luckily, there are a number of titles,
+English or Latin, with which no fault can be found. Spearwort,
+mouse-tail, arrow-head, bird's-foot, colt's-foot, blue-bell, bindweed,
+crane's-bill, snapdragon, shepherd's purse, skull-cap, monk's-hood,
+ox-tongue--these are but a few of the well-bestowed names which, by an
+immediate appeal to the eye, fix the flower in the mind; they are at
+once simple and appropriate: in others, such as Adonis, Columbine,
+penny-cress, cranberry, lady's-mantle, and thorow-wax, the description,
+if less manifest at first sight, is none the less charming when
+recognized. The Latin, too, is at times so befitting as to be accepted
+without demur; thus _iris_, to express the rainbow tints of the flowers,
+needs no English equivalent, and _campanula_ has only to be literally
+rendered as "bell-flower." In _campanula hederacea_, the "ivy-leaved
+bell-flower," we see nomenclature at its best, the petals and the
+foliage of a floral gem being both faithfully described.
+
+A glance at a list of British wildflowers will bring to mind various
+other ways in which names have been given to them--some familiar, some
+romantic, a few even poetical. Among the homely but not unpleasing kind,
+are "Jack by the hedge" for the garlic mustard; "John go to bed at noon"
+for the goat's-beard; "creeping Jenny" for the money-wort; and
+"lady's-fingers" for the kidney-vetch. Of the romantically named plants
+the most conspicuous example is doubtless the forget-me-not, its English
+name contrasting, as it does, with the more realistic Latin _myosotis_,
+which detects in the shape of the leaves a likeness to a mouse's ear.
+None, perhaps, can claim to be so poetical as Gerarde's name for the
+clematis; for "traveller's joy" was one of those happy inspirations
+which are unfortunately rare.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE OPEN DOWNLAND
+
+    Open hither, open hence,
+    Scarce a bramble weaves a fence.
+
+    MEREDITH.
+
+
+WHEN speaking of some Sussex water-meadows, I mentioned as one of their
+many delights the views which they offer of the never distant Downs. The
+charm of these chalk hills is to me only inferior to that of real
+mountains; there are times, indeed, when with clouds resting on the
+summits, or drifting slowly along the coombes, one could almost imagine
+himself to be in the true mountain presence. I have watched, on an
+autumn day, a long sea of vapour rolling up from the weald against the
+steep northern front of the Downs, while their southern slopes were
+still basking in sunshine; and scarcely less wonderful than the clouds
+themselves are the cloud-shadows that may often be seen chasing each
+other across the wide open tracts which lie in the recesses of the
+hills.
+
+"Majestic mountains," "exalted promontories," were among the
+descriptions given of the Downs by Gilbert White: what we now prize in
+them is not altitude but spaciousness. In Rosamund Marriott Watson's
+words:
+
+    Broad and bare to the skies
+    The great Down-country lies.
+
+Its openness, with the symmetry of the free curves and contours into
+which the chalk shapes itself, is the salient feature of the range; and
+to this may be added its liberal gift of solitude and seclusion. Even
+from the babel of Brighton an hour's journey on foot can bring one into
+regions where a perpetual Armistice Day is being celebrated, with
+something better than the two minutes of silence snatched from the
+townsfolk's day of din.
+
+The Downs are also open in the sense of being free, to a very great
+extent, from the enclosures which in so many districts exclude the
+public from the land. In some parts, unfortunately, the abominable
+practice of erecting wire fences is on the increase among sheep-farmers;
+but generally speaking, a naturalist may here wander where he will.
+
+Of all the flowering plants of the Downs, the gorse is at once the
+earliest and the most impressive; no spectacle that English wildflowers
+can offer, when seen _en masse_, excels that of the numberless
+furze-bushes on a bright April day. There is then a vividness in the
+gorse, a depth and warmth of that "deep gold colour" beloved by
+Rossetti, which far surpasses the glazed metallic sheen of a field of
+buttercups. It is pure gold, in bullion, the palpable wealth of
+Croesus, displayed not in flat surfaces, but in bars, ingots, and
+spires, bough behind bough, distance on distance, with infinite variety
+of light and shade, and set in strong relief against a background of
+sombre foliage. Thus it has the appearance, in full sunshine, almost of
+a furnace, a reddish underglow and heart of flame which is lacking even
+in the broom. To creep within one of these gorse-temples when illumined
+by the sun, is to enjoy an ecstasy both of colour and of scent.
+
+With the exception of the furze, the Downland flowers are mostly low of
+stature, as befits their exposed situation, a small but free people
+inhabiting the wind-swept slopes and coombes, and well requiting the
+friendship of those who visit them in their fastnesses. One of the
+earliest and most welcome is the spring whitlow-grass, which abounds on
+ant-hills high up on the ridges, forming a dense growth like soft down
+on the earth's cheek. Here it hastes to get its blossoming done before
+the rush of other plants, its little reddish stalk rising from a rosette
+of short leaves, and bearing the tiny terminal flowers with white deeply
+cleft petals and anthers of yellow hue. Its near successor is the
+equally diminutive mouse-ear (_cerastium semidecandrum_), a
+white-petaled plant of a deep dark green, viscous, and thickly covered
+with hairs.
+
+When summer has come, the flowers of the Downs are legion--yellow
+bird's-foot trefoil, and horse-shoe vetch; milkwort pink, white, or
+blue; fragile rock-rose; graceful dropwort; salad burnet;
+squinancy-wort, and a hundred more,[7] of which one of the fairest,
+though commonest, is the trailing silverweed, whose golden petals are in
+perfect contrast with the frosted silver of the foliage. But the special
+ornament of these hills, known as "the pride of Sussex," is the
+round-headed rampion, a small, erect, blue-bonneted flower which is no
+"roundhead" in the Puritan sense, but rather of the gay company of
+cavaliers. Abundant along the Downs from Eastbourne to Brighton, and
+still further to the west, it is a plant of which the eye never tires.
+
+[Footnote 7: See the beautiful chapter on "The Living Garment," in Mr.
+W. H. Hudson's _Nature in Downland_.]
+
+But it is the orchids that chiefly draw one's thoughts to Downland when
+midsummer is approaching. "Have you seen the bee orchis?" is then the
+question that is asked; and to wander on the lower slopes at that season
+without seeing the bee orchis would argue a tendency to
+absent-mindedness. I used to debate with myself whether the likeness to
+a bee is real or fanciful, till one day, not thinking of orchids at all,
+I stopped to examine a rather strange-looking bee which I noticed on the
+grass, and found that the insect was--a flower. That, so far, settled
+the point; but I still think that the fly orchis is the better imitation
+of the two.
+
+The early spider orchis is native on the eastern range of the Downs,
+near the lonely hamlet of Telscombe and in a few other localities in
+the heart of the hills; where, unless one has luck--and I had none--the
+search for a small flower on those far-stretching slopes is like the
+proverbial hunt for a needle in a hayloft. The only noticeable object on
+the hillside was an apparently dead sheep, about a hundred feet below
+me, lying flat on her back, with hoofs pointing rigidly to the sky; but
+as it was _orchis_, not _ovis_, that I was in quest of, I was about to
+pass on, when I saw a shepherd, who had just come round a shoulder of
+the Down, uplift the sheep and set her on her legs, whereupon, to my
+surprise, she ambled away as if nothing had been amiss with her. I
+learnt from the shepherd that such accidents are not uncommon, and that
+having once "turned turtle" the sluggish creature (as mankind has made
+her) would certainly have perished unless he had chanced to come to the
+rescue. When I told the good man what had brought me to that
+unfrequented coombe, he said, as country people often do, that he did
+not "take much notice" of wildflowers; nevertheless, after inquiring
+about the appearance of the orchids, he volunteered to note the place
+for me if he chanced to see them. Then, as we were parting, he called
+after me: "And if you see any more sheep on their backs, I'll thank you
+if you'll turn 'em over." This I willingly promised, on the principle
+not only of humanity, but that one good turn deserves another. Next
+season, perhaps, our friendly compact may be renewed.
+
+The dingle in which Telscombe lies is rich in flowers; in the Maytime of
+which I am speaking, there was a profusion of hound's-tongue in bloom,
+and a good sprinkling of that charming upland plant, deserving of a
+pleasanter name, the field fleawort; but of what I was searching for, no
+trace. I had walked into the spider's "parlour," but the spider was not
+at home. More fortunate was a lady who on that same day brought to the
+Hove exhibition a flower which she had casually picked on another part
+of the Downs where she was taking a walk. Sitting down for a rest, she
+saw an unknown plant on the turf. It was a spider orchis.
+
+Much less unaccommodating, to me, was the musk orchis, a still smaller
+species which grows in several places where the northern face of the
+Downs is intersected, as below Ditchling Beacon, by deep-cut
+tracks--they can hardly be called bridle-paths--that slant upward across
+the slope. I was told by Miss Robinson, of Saddlescombe, to whose wide
+knowledge of Sussex plants many flower-lovers besides myself have been
+indebted, that she once picked a musk orchis from horseback as she was
+riding along the hill side. It is a sober-garbed little flower, with not
+much except its rarity to signalize it; but an orchis is an orchis
+still; there is no member of the family that has not an interest of its
+own. Many of them are locally common on these hills; to wit, the early
+purple, the fly, the frog, the fragrant, the spotted, the pyramidal,
+and most lovely of all, the dwarf orchis; also the twayblade, the
+lady's-tresses, and one or two of the helleborines. The green-man
+orchis, not uncommon in parts of Surrey and Kent, will here be sought in
+vain.
+
+But the Downs are not wholly composed of grassy sheep-walks and
+furze-dotted wastes; they include many tracts of cultivated land, where,
+if we may judge from the botanical records of the past generation,
+certain cornfield weeds which are now very rare, such as the mouse-tail
+and the hare's-ear, were once much more frequent. It is rather strange
+that the improved culture, which has nearly eliminated several
+interesting species, should have had so little effect on the charlock
+and the poppy, which still colour great squares and sections of the
+Downs with their rival tints, their yellow and scarlet rendered more
+conspicuous by having the quiet tones of these rolling uplands for a
+background.
+
+In autumn, when most of the wealden flowers are withering, the chalk
+hills are still decked with gentians and other late-growing kinds; and
+the persistence, even into sere October, of such children of the sun as
+the rampion and the rock-rose is very remarkable. The autumnal aspect of
+the Downs is indeed as beautiful as any; for there are then many days
+when a blissful calm seems to brood over the great coombes and hollows,
+and the fields lie stretched out like a many-coloured map, the rich
+browns of the ploughlands splashed and variegated with patches of
+yellow and green. Then, too, one sees and hears overhead the joy-flight
+of the rooks and daws, as round and round they circle, higher and
+higher, like an inverted maelstrom swirling upward, till it breaks with
+a chorus of exulting cries as gladdening to the ear as is the sight of
+those aerial manoeuvres to the eye.
+
+The final impression which the Downs leave on the mind is, I repeat, one
+of freedom and space; and this is felt by the flower-lover as strongly
+as by any wanderer on these hills, these "blossoming places in the
+wilderness," as Mr. Hudson has called them, "which make the thought of
+our trim, pretty, artificial gardens a weariness."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE
+
+    Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden,
+      Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please.
+    I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones:
+      O my wild ones! they tell me more than these.
+
+    MEREDITH.
+
+
+THE domestication of plants, as of animals, is a concern of such
+practical importance that in most minds it quite transcends whatever
+interest may be felt in the beauty of wildflowers. But the many delights
+of the garden ought not to blind us to the fact that there is in the
+wild a peculiar quality which the domesticated can never reproduce, and
+that the plant which is free, even if it be the humblest and most
+common, has a charm for the nature-lover which the more gorgeous
+captives of the garden must inevitably lack. If much is gained by
+domestication, much is also lost. This, doubtless, is felt less strongly
+in the taming of plants than of animals, but in either case it holds
+true.
+
+To some of us, it must be owned, zoological gardens are a nightmare of
+confusion, and the now almost equally popular "rock-garden" a place
+which leaves an impression of dulness and futility; for while we fully
+recognize the interest, such as it is, of inducing Alpines to grow under
+altered conditions of climate, there is an irrelevance in the assembling
+of heterogeneous flowers in one enclosure, which perplexes and wearies
+the mind. For just as a cosmopolitan city is no city at all, and a Babel
+is no language, so a multifarious rock-garden, where a host of alien
+plants are grouped in unnatural juxtaposition, is a collection not of
+flowers but of "specimens." For scientific purposes--the determination
+of species, and viewing the plants in all stages of their growth--it may
+be most valuable: to the mere flower-lover, as he gazes on such a
+concourse, the thought that arises is: "What's Hecuba to him, or he to
+Hecuba?" It is a museum, a herbarium, if you like; but hardly, in any
+true sense, a garden.
+
+I once had the experience of living next door to a friend who was
+smitten with the mania for rock-gardening, and from my study window I
+overlooked the process from start to finish--first the arrival of many
+tons of limestone blocks and chips; then the construction of artificial
+crags and gullies, moraines and escarpments, until a line of miniature
+Alps rose to view; and lastly the planting of various mountain flowers
+in the situations suited to their needs. Then followed many earnest
+colloquies between the creator of this fair scene and a neighbour
+enthusiast, as they walked about the garden together and inspected it
+plant by plant, much as a farmer goes his rounds to examine his oats or
+turnips. They surveyed the world, botanically speaking, from China to
+Peru. Yet somehow I felt that, just as I would rather see a sparrow at
+large than an eagle in captivity, so to be shown round that
+well-fashioned rockery was less entertaining than to show oneself round
+the most barren of the adjacent moors. "Herbes that growe in the
+fieldes," wrote a fifteenth-century herbalist, "be bettere than those
+that growe in gardenes."[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: Quoted in _A Garden of Herbs_, by E. S. Rohde.]
+
+This, however, is by no means the common opinion; on the contrary, there
+is in most minds a disregard or veritable contempt for wildflowers as
+being, with a few exceptions, "weeds," and quite unworthy of comparison
+with the inmates of a garden.
+
+In her _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, Anne Pratt has recorded how she was
+invited by a cottager to throw away a bunch of "ordinary gays" that she
+was carrying, and to gather some garden flowers in their stead.
+
+I once took a long walk over the moors in Derbyshire in order to visit
+certain rare flowers of the limestone dales, among them the
+speedwell-leaved whitlow-grass (_draba muralis_), a specimen of which I
+brought home. This little crucifer is very insignificant in appearance;
+and the fact that anyone should plod many miles to gather it so upset
+the gravity of an extremely demure and respectful servant girl, when
+she saw it on my mantelpiece, that to her own visible shame and
+confusion she broke into a loud giggle, somewhat as Bernard Shaw's
+chocolate-cream soldier failed to conceal his amusement when the
+portrait of the hero of the cavalry charge was shown to him by its
+possessor.
+
+Even in the case of those wildings whose beauty or scent has made them
+generally popular, it is thought the highest compliment to domesticate
+them, to bring them--poor waifs and strays that they are--from their
+forlorn savage state into the fold of civilization, just as a
+"deserving" pauper might be received into an almshouse, or an orphan
+child into one of Dr. Barnardo's homes. And strange to say, this
+reverential belief in the garden, as enhancing the merits of the wild,
+has found its way into many of the wildflower books: for instance, in
+Johns's well-known work, _Flowers of the Field_ (of the _field_, be it
+noted), we are informed that the lily of the valley is "a universally
+admired garden plant, and that the sweet-brier is "deservedly"
+cultivated.
+
+The more refined wildflowers, it will be seen, can thus rise, as it
+were, from the ranks, at the cost of their freedom, which happens to be
+the most interesting thing about them, to be enrolled in the army of the
+civilized; and the result has been that some of the more distinguished
+plants, such as the _daphne mezereum_, are fast losing their place among
+British wildflowers, and becoming nothing better than prisoners and
+captives of the parterre. This disdain that is felt for whatever is
+wild, natural, and unowned, is largely responsible for the unscrupulous
+digging up of any attractive plants that may be discovered, a subject of
+which I propose to speak in the next chapter.
+
+The absurdity of the typical gardener's attitude toward wildflowers is
+well illustrated by some remarks in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ (1856)
+with reference to that exceedingly beautiful plant, the tutsan. "Tutsan
+is a hardy shrubby St. John's-wort, largely employed by gardeners of the
+last century; but it has now, for the most part, retired from business,
+in consequence of the arrival of more attractive and equally serviceable
+newcomers. One or two tutsan bushes may be permitted to help to form a
+screen of shrubs, in consideration of the days of auld lang syne."
+
+Fortunately the tutsan is not "retiring from business" in Nature's
+garden. It seems to me that, instead of carrying more and more
+wildflowers into captivity, it would be much wiser to set at liberty the
+many British plants that are now under detention. I would instruct my
+gardener (if I had one) to lift very carefully the daphnes, the lilies
+of the valley, the tutsans, the cornflowers, the woodruffs, and the rest
+of the native clan, and to plant them out, each according to its taste,
+by bank or hedgerow, in field, common, or wood.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+PICKING AND STEALING
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+      I pluck you out of the crannies.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+THERE is, as I have said, a positive contempt in many minds for the
+wildflower; that is, for the flower which is regarded as being no one's
+"property." But the flora of a country, rightly considered, is very far
+from being unowned; it is the property of the people, and when any
+species is diminished or extirpated the loss is not private but
+national. We have already reached a time, as many botanists think, when
+the choicer British flowers need some sort of protection.
+
+That some injury should be caused to our native flora by improved
+culture, drainage, building, and the extension of towns, is inevitable;
+though these losses might be considerably lessened if there were a more
+general regard for natural beauty. But that is all the stronger reason
+for discountenancing such damage as is done in mere thoughtlessness, or,
+worse, for selfish purposes; and it were greatly to be wished that some
+of the good folk who pray that their hands may be kept "from picking and
+stealing" would so far widen the scope of their sympathies as to include
+the rarer wildflowers.
+
+It cannot be doubted that there is an immense amount of wasteful
+flower-picking by children, and also by persons who are old enough to
+know better. Nothing is commoner, in Spring, than to see piles of
+freshly gathered hyacinths or cowslips abandoned by the roadside; and
+many other flowers share the same fate, including, as I have noticed,
+the beautiful green-winged meadow orchis. Trippers and holiday-makers
+are often very mischievous: I have seen them, for instance, on the
+ramparts of Conway Castle, hooking and tearing the red valerian which is
+an ornament to the grey old walls. I was told by a friend who lives in a
+district where the rare meadow-sage (_salvia pratensis_) is native, that
+he is compelled to pluck the blue flowers just before the August
+bank-holiday, in order to save the plant itself from being up-rooted and
+carried off.
+
+Primroses, abundant as they still are in many places, have nearly
+disappeared from others, in consequence of the depredations of
+flower-vendors; and there was a time when they were seriously threatened
+in the neighbourhood of London because a certain fashionable cult was at
+its height. Witness the following "Idyll of Primrose Day" by some
+unknown versifier:
+
+    How blest was dull old Peter Bell,
+      Whom Wordsworth sung in days of yore!
+    A primrose by a river's brim
+    A yellow primrose was to him,
+      And it was nothing more.
+
+    Alas! 'tis something more to us;
+      No longer Nature's meekest flower,
+    But symbol of consummate Quack,
+    Who by tall talk and knavish knack
+      Could plant himself in power.
+
+    For his sweet sake we mourn, each spring,
+      Our lanes and hedgerows robbed and bare,
+    Our woods despoiled by clumsy clown,
+    That primrose-tufts may come to town
+      For tuft-hunters to wear.
+
+    And so, on snobbish Primrose Day,
+      We envy Peter's simple lore:
+    A primrose, worn with fulsome fuss,
+    A yellow primrose is to us,
+      Alas! and something more.
+
+The nurseryman and the professional gardener have also much to answer
+for in the destruction of wildflowers. Take the following instance,
+quoted from the _Flora of Kent_, with reference to the cyclamen:
+"Towards the end of August, 1861, I was shown the native station of this
+plant. . . . The people in those parts had found out it was in request,
+and had almost entirely extirpated it, digging up the roots, and selling
+them for transplantation into shrubberies." In the same work it is
+recorded that, when the frog orchis was found in some abundance near
+Canterbury, "in a wonderfully short space of time the whole of this
+charming colony was dug and extirpated."
+
+Again, if it be permissible to call a spade a spade, what shall be said
+of those roving knights of the trowel, the unconscionable rock-gardeners
+who ride abroad in search of some new specimen for their collections? A
+late writer of very charming books on the subject has feelingly
+described how, after the discovery of some long-sought treasure, he
+craved a brief spell of repose, a sort of holy calm, before commencing
+operations. "We blessed ones," he said, referring to botanists as
+contrasted with ornithologists, "may sit down calmly, philosophically,
+beside our success, and gently savour all its sweetness, until it is
+time to take out the trowel after half an hour of restful rapture in our
+laurels."[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: From _My Rock Garden_, by Reginald Farrer, p. 257.]
+
+Other flower-fanciers there are who show much less circumspection. In
+Upper Teesdale, where the rare blue gentian (_gentiana verna_) is found
+on the upland pastures, I was told that a "gentleman" had come with two
+gardeners in a motor, and departed laden with a number of these
+beautiful Alpine flowers for transplantation to his private rockery. The
+nation which permits such a theft--far worse than stealing from a
+private garden--deserves to possess no wildflowers at all; and such a
+botanist, if botanist he can be called, deserves to be himself
+transplanted, or transported--to Botany Bay.
+
+The same vandalism, in varying degrees, has been at work in every part
+of the land, and nothing has yet been done effectively to check it,
+whether by legislation, education, or appeal to public opinion: it seems
+to be absolutely no one's business to protect what ought to be a
+cherished national possession. In no district, perhaps, has the greed of
+the collector been more unabashed than among the mountains of Cumberland
+and North Wales. "Thanks to the inconsiderate rapacity of the
+fern-getter," wrote Canon Rawnsley, in an Introduction to a _Guide to
+Lakeland_, "the few rarer sorts are fast disappearing. ... There has
+been, in the time past, quite a cruel and unnecessary uprooting of the
+rarer ferns and flowers;" and he went on to ask: "When will travellers
+learn that the fern by the wayside has a public duty to fulfil?"
+
+All such remonstrances have hitherto been in vain: neither the fear of
+God nor the fear of man has deterred the collector from his purpose. It
+is pleasant to read that in the seventeenth century a Welsh guide
+alleged "the fear of eagles" as a reason for not leading one of the
+earliest English visitors to the haunts of Alpine plants on the
+precipices of Carnedd Llewelyn; but unfortunately eagles are now as
+scarce as nurserymen and fern-filchers are numerous.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT
+
+     I found a deep hollow on the side of a great hill, a green concave,
+     where I could rest and think in perfect quiet.
+
+    RICHARD JEFFERIES.
+
+
+AS a range of hills, the North Downs are inferior to those of Sussex in
+beauty and general interest. Their outline suggests no "greyhound backs"
+coursing along the horizon; nor have they that "living garment" of turf,
+woven by centuries of pasturing, which Hudson has matchlessly described.
+Their northern side is but a gradual slope leading up to a bleak
+tableland; and only when one emerges suddenly on their southern front,
+with its wide views across the weald, do their glories begin to be
+realized. In this steep declivity, facing the sun at noon, there is a
+distinctive and unfailing charm, quite unlike that of the corresponding
+escarpment of the South Downs: it forms, as it were, an inland riviera,
+a sheltered undercliff, green with long waving grasses, and sweet with
+marjoram and thyme, a haven where the wandering flower-lover may revel
+in glowing sunshine, or take a siesta, if so minded, under that most
+friendly of trees the white-beam.
+
+I have memories of many a pious Sabbath spent in this enchanted realm,
+with the wind in the beeches for anthem, and for incense the scent of
+marjoram enriching the air. To one who knows these fragrant banks it
+seems strange that though the wild thyme has been so celebrated by poets
+and nature-writers, the marjoram, itself a glorified thyme, has by
+comparison gone unsung. We are told in the books that it is a potherb,
+an aromatic stimulant, even a remedy for toothache. It may be all that;
+but it is something much better, a thing of beauty which might cure the
+achings not of the tooth only, but of the heart. Its relatives the
+lavender and the rosemary have not more charm. It was the _amaracus_ of
+Virgil, the flower on whose sweetness the young Iulus rested, when he
+was spirited away by Venus to her secret abode:
+
+    She o'er the prince entrancing slumber strows,
+    And, fondling in her bosom, far away
+    Bears him aloft to high Idalian bowers,
+    Where banks of marjoram sweet, in soft repose,
+    Enfold him, propped on beds of fragrant flowers.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Æneid_, I. 691-4.]
+
+Who could wish for a diviner couch?
+
+Along this range of hills the chalk-pits, used or disused, are frequent
+at intervals, some of such size as to form landmarks visible at the
+distance of twenty or thirty miles. For a botanist, these
+amphitheatres, large or small, have always an attraction; for though
+they vary much in the quality of their flowers, and some have little to
+show beyond the commoner plants of a calcareous soil, there are a few
+which present a surprising array of the choicer kinds; and to light upon
+one of these treasure-troves is a joy indeed. I have in mind a large
+semicircular disused pit, lying high among the Downs, and bordered with
+abrupt grassy banks and coppices of beech, hazel, and fir, where during
+the past thirty years I have spent many long summer days, sometimes
+writing under the shade of the trees, at other times idling among the
+flowers, or watching the snakes that lie basking in the sun, or the
+kestrels that may often be seen hovering over the adjacent slopes. For
+all their unrivalled openness and sense of space, the Sussex Downs have
+no such "sun-trap" to show.
+
+One has heard of "the music of wild flowers."[11] I used to call the
+floor of this chalk-pit "the orchistra," so numerous are the orchids
+that adorn it. The spotted orchis, the fragrant orchis, the pyramidal
+orchis, the bee orchis, the butterfly orchis, and the twayblade--these
+six are stationed there within a small compass. The marsh orchis grows
+below; the fly orchis is in the neighbouring thickets; in the
+beech-woods are the bird's-nest orchis, the broad-leaved helleborine,
+with its rare purple variety (_epipactis purpurata_), and the large
+white helleborine or egg orchis. A dozen of the family within the
+circuit of a short walk! The man orchis seems to be absent, though it
+grows in some plenty in similar places on the same line of hills.
+
+[Footnote 11: See note on p. 12.]
+
+Another feature of the chalk-pit is the viper's bugloss. If, as Thoreau
+says, there is a flower for every mood of the mind, the viper's bugloss
+must surely belong to that mood which is associated with the pomps and
+splendours of the high summer noontide. Gorgeous and tropical in its
+colouring beyond all other British flowers, as it rears its bristly
+green spikes, studded profusely with the pink buds that are turning to
+an equally vivid blue, it seems instinct with the spirit of a fiery
+summer day. Like other members of the Borage group, it has the warm
+southern temperament; its name, too, suits it well; for there is
+something viperish in the almost fierce beauty of the plant, as if some
+passionate-hearted exotic had sprung up among the more staid and sober
+representatives of our native flora. Its richness never palls on us; we
+no more tire of its brilliance than of the summer itself.
+
+Akin to the bugloss, though less striking and less abundant, is the
+hound's-tongue, with its long downy leaves and numerous purple-red buds
+of a sombre and sullen hue that is not often to be matched. It has the
+misfortune, so we are told, to smell of mice; were it not for this
+hindrance to its career, it might justly be held in high esteem. Among
+the larger plants prominent on ledges of the chalk, or in near
+neighbourhood, are the mullein, the teazle, the ploughman's-spikenard,
+and the deadly nightshade or dwale. The buckthorn is frequent in the
+hedges and thickets; and the traveller's-joy is climbing wherever it can
+get a hold.
+
+But it is on the shelving banks that skirt the margin of the pit that
+the comeliest flowers are to be found; the most beautiful of all,
+perhaps, is the rock-rose, a plant so delicate that its small golden
+petals will scarcely survive a journey in the vasculum, yet so hardy
+that it will flower to the very latest autumn days. The wild strawberry
+is creeping everywhere; and the crimson of the grass vetchling may
+occasionally be seen among the ranker herbage, to which the stalk seems
+to belong; on the shorter turf is the small squinancy-wort, lovely
+cousin of the woodruff, its pink and white petals chiselled like the
+finest ivory.
+
+The elegant yellow-wort, glaucous and perfoliate, and the handsome pink
+centaury, are common on the Downs; so, too, in the late summer, will be
+their less showy but always welcome relative, the autumnal gentian: all
+three have the firm and erect habit that is a property of the Gentian
+tribe. It is one of the many merits of these chalk hills that their
+flower-season is a prolonged one. Not the gentians only, with
+yellow-wort and centaury, are still vigorous in the autumn, but also the
+blue fleabane, clustered bell-flower, vervain, marjoram, basil, and many
+labiate herbs. Even in October, when the glory has long departed from
+the lowlands of the weald, there remains a brave show of blossom on
+these delectable hills.
+
+The Pilgrim's Way, often no more than a grassy track, runs eastward
+along the base of the Downs, interrupted here and there by the
+encroachment of parks and private estates, which now block the ancient
+route to Canterbury; but where Nature has provided so many shrines and
+cathedrals of her own, there is no need of any others; certainly I never
+lacked a holy place wherein to make my vows, many as were the
+pilgrimages on which I started.
+
+On one occasion that I recall, I was joined in my quest by a rather
+strange fellow-traveller, a man who met me, coming from the opposite
+direction, and eagerly asked whether I had seen anyone on the hillside.
+When I assured him that nobody had passed that way, he turned and walked
+in my company, and presently confided to me that he was an attendant at
+a lunatic asylum, and was in pursuit of an inmate who had escaped an
+hour or two before. We went a short distance together, he peering into
+the coombes and bushy hollows, as incongruous a pair as could be
+imagined; yet it occurred to me that his mission, too, might be
+considered a botanical one, since there is a plant named the
+madwort--nay, worse, the "German madwort," a title which, in those
+feverish war-days, would of itself have justified incarceration.
+Nevertheless, as I always sympathize with escaped prisoners (provided,
+of course, that it is not _my_ bed under which they conceal
+themselves), I was secretly glad that my companion's search was
+unavailing.
+
+To return to my chalk-pit: I have mentioned but a few of the many
+flowers that belong there; within a mile, or less, others and quite
+different ones are flourishing. The rampion, though very local in
+Surrey, is found in places along these Downs; so, too, is the strange
+yellow bugle, or "ground pine," which is much more like a diminutive
+pine than a bugle; also the still stranger fir-rape (_monotropa_), which
+lurks in the thickest shade of the beech-woods. That interesting shrub,
+the butcher's-broom, or "knee holly," as it is more agreeably called, is
+another native: it wears its small flower daintily, like a button-hole,
+on the centre of the rigid leaves of deepest green.
+
+A few miles east there is another chalk-pit which, though inferior in
+the number of its flowers, has a sprinkling of the man orchis, whose
+shape, if there is any likeness at all, seems to suggest a toy man
+dangling from a string; a simile which I prefer to that of a dead man
+dangling from the gallows. In the woods that crown this pit there is a
+profusion of the deadly nightshade; and I noticed that during the
+war-summers, when there was a scarcity of belladonna, these plants were
+regularly harvested by some enterprising herbalist.
+
+Such are a few of the delights of the Surrey undercliff; but alas! they
+are vanishing delights, for the proximity to London has rendered all
+this district peculiarly liable to change. How could it be otherwise,
+when from the top of the ridge the dome of "smoky Paul's" is visible on
+a clear day, and a view of the Crystal Palace, "that dreadful C.P." as
+one has heard it called, can seldom be avoided. What havoc has been
+wrought in the Surrey hills by the advance of "civilization," may be
+learnt by anyone who studies the district with a sixty-year-old _Flora
+of Surrey_ for guide. Between Merstham and Godstone, for instance, the
+hillsides, which were then free, open ground, have become in the saddest
+sense "residential," and the wildflowers have suffered in proportion.
+One may still find there the narrow-leaved everlasting pea, "hanging in
+festoons on thickets and copses," but other equally valued plants have
+disappeared or are disappearing. The marsh helleborine was once
+plentiful, it seems, in a swampy situation near Merstham; but when, by
+dint of careful trespassing and circumnavigation of barbed wire, I
+reached a place which corresponded exactly with that indicated in the
+_Flora_, not a single flower was to be seen. Probably some conscientious
+gardener had "transplanted" them.
+
+It is impossible to doubt that this process will be continued, and that
+every year more wild land will be broken up in the building of villas
+and in the making of gardens, with the inevitable shrubberies, gravel
+walks, flower-borders, and lawn-tennis courts. The trim parterre with
+its "detested calceolarias," as a great nature-lover has described
+them, will more and more be substituted for the rough banks that are the
+favourite haunts of marjoram and rock-rose. How can the owners of such a
+fairyland have the heart to sell it for such a purpose? In Omar's words:
+
+    I often wonder what the vintners buy
+    One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+A SANDY COMMON
+
+    The common, overgrown with fern, . . .
+    Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf
+    Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs
+    And fungus fruits of earth, regales the sense
+    With luxury of unexpected sweets.
+
+    COWPER.
+
+
+STRETCHED between the North Downs and the weald, through the west part
+of Kent and the length of Surrey, runs the parallel range of greensand,
+which in a few places, as at Toys Hill and Leith Hill, equals or
+overtops its rival, but is elsewhere content to keep a lower level, as a
+region of high open commons and heaths. The light soil of this district
+shows a flora as different from that of the chalk hills on its north as
+of the wealden clays on its south; so that a botanist has here the
+choice of three kingdoms to explore.
+
+In natural beauty, these hills can hardly compare with the Downs. "For
+my part," wrote Gilbert White, "I think there is something peculiarly
+sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in
+preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and
+shapeless."[12] The same opinion was held by William Morris, who once
+declined to visit a friend of his (from whom I had the story) because he
+was living on just such a sandy common in west Surrey, where the
+formless and lumpish outline of the land was a pain to the artistic eye.
+For hygienic reasons, however, a sandy soil is reputed best to dwell
+upon; and I have heard a tale--told as a warning to those who are
+over-fastidious in their choice of a site--of a pious old gentleman who,
+being determined to settle only where he could be assured of two
+conditions, "a sandy soil and the pure gospel," finally died without
+either in a Bloomsbury hotel.
+
+[Footnote 12: _Natural History of Selborne_, ch. lvi.]
+
+The gorse and broom in spring, and in autumn the heather, are the marked
+features of the sandy Common: the foxglove, too, which has a strong
+distaste for lime, here often thrives in vast abundance, and makes a
+great splash of purple at the edge of the woods. But even apart from
+these more conspicuous plants, the "barren heath," as it is sometimes
+called, is well able to hold its own in a flower-lover's affection;
+though the absence of the finer orchids, and of some other flowers that
+pertain to the chalk, makes it perhaps less exciting as a field of
+adventure. In Crabbe's words:
+
+    And then how fine the herbage! Men may say
+    A heath is barren: nothing is so gay.
+
+From May to September the Common is sprinkled with a bright succession
+of flowers--the slender _moenchia_, akin to the campions and
+chickweeds, dove's-foot, crane's-bill; tormentil; heath bedstraw;
+speedwells of several species; autumnal harebell, and golden rod--each
+in turn playing its part. Among the aristocracy of this small people are
+the bird's-foot, an elfin creature, with tiny pinnate leaves and creamy
+crimson-veined blossoms; the modest milkwort, itself far from a rarity,
+yet so lovely that it shames us in our desire for the rare; and the
+trailing St. John's-wort, which we hail as the beauty of the family,
+until presently, meeting with its "upright" sister of the smooth
+heart-shaped leaves and the golden red-stained buds, we are forced to
+own that to her the name of _hypericum pulcrum_ most rightly belongs.
+
+But the chief prize of the sandy heath is the Deptford pink, a rare
+annual of uncertain appearance, which bears the unmistakable stamp of
+nobility: it is a red-letter day for the flower-lover when he finds a
+small colony of these comely plants on some dry grassy margin. It was on
+a bank in Westerham Park that I first met with them; and there they
+reappeared, though in lessening numbers, in the two succeeding seasons.
+There was also a solitary flower, growing unpicked, strange to say,
+close beside one of the most frequented tracks that skirt the
+neighbouring Common.
+
+In the woods of beech and fir with which the hill is fringed there are
+more fungi than flowers; and here too the "call of the wild" is felt,
+though to a feast of a less ethereal order. Fungus hunting is one of the
+best of sports, and a joy unknown to those who imagine that the orthodox
+"mushroom" of the market is the only wholesome species; and it is worthy
+of note that, whereas the true meadow mushroom is procurable during only
+a few weeks of the year, the fungus-eater can pursue his quarry during
+six or seven months, so great is the variety at his disposal. Among the
+delicacies that these woods produce are the red-fleshed mushroom, a
+brown-topped warty plant which becomes rufous when bruised; the
+gold-coloured chantarelle, often found growing in profusion along bushy
+paths and dingles; the big edible boletus, ignored in this country, but
+well appreciated on the Continent; and best of all, deserving indeed of
+its Latin name, the _agaricus deliciosus_, or orange-milk agaric, so
+called because its flesh, when broken, exudes an orange-coloured juice.
+It is easy to identify these and many other species with the help of a
+handbook, and it therefore seems strange that Englishmen, as compared
+with other races, should be prejudiced against the use of this valuable
+form of food. As for the country-folk who live within easy reach of such
+dainties, yet would rather starve than eat a "toadstool," what can one
+say of them?
+
+    _O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!_[13]
+
+[Footnote 13: Thrice blest, if they but knew what joys are theirs!]
+
+From the south side of these fir-woods one formerly emerged, almost at a
+step, on to the escarpment that overlooks the weald, and at one of the
+finest viewpoints in Kent or Surrey; but the trees were felled during
+the war by Portuguese woodmen imported for that lamentable purpose. The
+spot is remembered by me for another reason; for there, in the years
+before the madness of Europe, used to sit almost daily a very aged man,
+whose home was on the hillside close by, and who was brought out, by his
+own wish, that he might spend his declining days not in moping by a
+kitchen fire, but in gazing across the wide expanse of weald, where all
+the landmarks were familiar to him, and of which he seemed never to
+weary. No more truly devout old age could have been desired; for there
+was no mistaking his genuine love for what Richard Jefferies called "the
+pageant of summer," the open-air panorama of the seasons, as observed
+from that heathery watch-tower. The only cloud on his horizon, so to
+speak, was the flock of aeroplanes which even then were beginning to mar
+the sky's calmness: of these he would sagely remark that "if man had
+been intended to fly, the Almighty would have given him wings." Had the
+old philosopher known to what hellish uses those engines were presently
+to be put, he might have wondered still more at such thwarting of the
+divine intent.
+
+Of sandpits there are several on the Common, and their disused borders
+are favourite haunts for wildflowers. The "least" cudweed, a slender
+wisp of a plant, is native there; the small-flowered crane's-bill, which
+is liable to be confounded with the dove's-foot; also one or two curious
+aliens, such as the Canadian fleabane, and the Norwegian _potentilla_,
+which resembles the common cinquefoil but has smaller flowers.
+
+But what most allured me to the spot was the sheep's scabious, or, as it
+is more prettily named in the Latin, _Jasione montana_, a delightful
+little plant, baffling alike in name, form, and colour. It is called a
+scabious, yet is not one. It is classed as a campanula, and seen through
+a lens is found to be not one but many campanulas, a number of tiny
+bells united in a single head. Then its hue--was there ever tint more
+elusive, more indefinable, than that of its many petals? Is it grey, or
+blue, or lavender, or lilac, or what? We only know that the flower is
+very beautiful as it blooms on sandy bank or roadside wall.
+
+At the side of a small plantation that borders the heath there thrives
+the alien small-flowered balsam, which, like some of its handsomer
+kinsfolk, seems to be quickly extending its range. Near the same spot I
+noticed several years ago, on a winter day, a patch of large soft
+pale-green leaves, which at a hasty glance I took to be those of the
+scented colt's-foot; but when I passed that way in the following spring
+I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow
+composite flowers, had risen from the mass of foliage. It proved to be
+the leopard's-bane, probably an "escape" from some neighbouring garden,
+but already well established and thriving like any native.
+
+But the Common does not consist wholly of dry ground; in one place, near
+the centre of the golf-course, there is a marshy depression, and in it a
+small pond where the water is a foot or two deep in winter, but in a hot
+summer almost disappears. Here a double discovery awaits the inquirer.
+The muddy pool is full of one of the rarer mints--pennyroyal--and with
+it grows the curious _helosciadium inundatum_, or "least marsh-wort," a
+small umbelliferous plant which has more the habit and appearance of a
+water crowfoot, its lower leaves being cut in fine hair-like segments.
+
+Nor do the fields and lanes that adjoin the heath lack their distinctive
+charm. The orpine, or "live-long," a handsome purple stonecrop, is not
+uncommon by the hedgeside; and the lovely _geranium striatum_, or
+striped crane's-bill, an occasional straggler from gardens, has made for
+itself a home; a hardy little adventurer it is, and one hopes it may yet
+win a place among British flowers, as many a less desirable immigrant
+has done. Poppies and corn-marigolds are a wonder of red and gold in the
+cultivated fields, the poppies as usual looking their best (if
+agriculturists will pardon the remark) when they have a crop of wheat
+for a background. The queer little knawel springs up among spurrey and
+parsley-piert; and in one locality is the lesser snapdragon, which
+always commands attention, partly for its uncommonness, and partly as a
+scion of the romantic race of _Antirrhinum_, which has a fascination not
+for children only, but for all lovers of the quaint.
+
+I have mentioned the golf-course. To many a Common the golfers are
+becoming what the builders are to the Downs--invaders who, by the
+trimming of grass and cutting down of bushes, are turning the natural
+into the artificial, and appropriating for the use of the few the
+possession of the many. To everyone his recreation ground; but are not
+the golf clubs getting rather more than their portion?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS
+
+    Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes.
+
+    MILTON.
+
+I SPOKE just now of a love of the quaint. Quaintness, though it may
+exist apart from beauty, is often associated with it, and, unlike
+grotesqueness, has a pleasurable interest for the spectator. In flowers
+it is usually suggested by some abnormality of shape, as in the
+snapdragon; less frequently, as in the fritillary, by a singular effect
+of colouring. Perhaps it is to the orchis group that one would most
+confidently apply the word; for they arrest attention not so much by
+their beauty as by their strangeness: one of them, indeed, the dwarf
+orchis, is undeniably beautiful, while another, the bird's-nest, is as
+ugly as a broom-rape; the others, if one tried to find a comprehensive
+epithet, might fairly be described as quaint.
+
+This quality in the orchids is not due solely to the odd likeness which
+some of them present to certain insects; for, as far as British species
+are concerned, the similarity, with a few exceptions, is somewhat
+fanciful. If it be granted that the fly, the bee, and the spider orchis
+are justly named--though even in these the resemblance is not always
+recognized when pointed out--it is no less true that one looks in vain
+for the semblance of a "butterfly," or of a "frog," in the plants that
+are so entitled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the "man" in
+_aceras anthropophora_, or the "egg" in the white helleborine. But there
+is a charming quaintness in nearly all members of the family, owing
+largely to the peculiar structure of the lower lip of the corolla or the
+unusual length of the spur.
+
+The very name of the snapdragon is a proof of its hold upon the
+imagination: what mediæval romance and unfailing charm for children--and
+for adults--is conveyed in the word! The plant is at its best when clad
+in royal hue of purple; the white robe also has its glory; but the
+intermediate forms, striped and mottled, that are so fancied in gardens,
+are degenerates from a noble type. Seen on the walls of some ancient
+ruin, the snapdragon is a wonder and a delight; it is to be regretted
+that its place is now so often usurped by the red valerian, in
+comparison a mere upstart and pretender. The lesser snapdragon or
+calf's-snout, with the toadflaxes and fluellens, shares in the
+characteristic quaintness of its tribe.
+
+I will next instance the "perfoliates," plants not confined to any one
+order, but alike in having a stem which passes midway through the leaf
+or pair of leaves, a most engaging curiosity of structure. It is by
+this peculiarity that the yellow-wort, a gentian with glaucous foliage
+and blossoms like "patines of bright gold," mainly wins its popularity.
+But the quaintest of perfoliates is the hare's-ear, or "thorow-wax," as
+it used to be called, of which, as Gerarde wrote, "every branch grows
+thorow every leaf, making them like hollow cups or saucers." The
+thorow-wax owes its attractiveness to these singular glaucous leaves,
+which might be compared with an artist's palette; in some measure, also,
+to the sharp-pointed bracts by which the minute yellow flowers are
+enfolded--features that lend it a distinction which many much more
+beautiful plants do not possess.
+
+From no catalogue of quaint plants could the butterwort be omitted.
+"Mountain-sanicle" was its old name; and all climbers are acquainted
+with it, as it studs the wet rocks on the lower hillsides with pale
+green or yellowish leaves like starfish on a seashore. Its
+flowering-season is short, but full of interest, for lo! from its centre
+there rise in June one or two long and dainty stems, each bearing at its
+extremity a drooping purple flower that might at first glance be taken
+for a violet--a violet springing from a starfish!
+
+It is a long step from these conspicuous examples of the quaint to the
+small and modest moschatel, a hedge-flower which is likely to go
+unobserved unless it be made a special object of inquiry. _Adoxa_, "the
+unknown to fame," is its Greek title; but if it has little claim to
+beauty in the ordinary sense, there is no slight charm in its delicate
+configuration, and in the whimsical arrangement of its five slender
+flower-heads--a terminal one, facing upwards, supported by four lateral
+ones, with a resemblance to the faces of a clock; whence its not
+inappropriate nickname, "the clock-tower." A fairy-like little belfry it
+is, whose chimes must be listened for, if at all, in the early spring,
+for it hastens to get its flowering finished before it is overgrown by
+the rank herbage of the roadside.
+
+There are many other flowers that might claim a place in this chapter,
+such as the sundews and the bladderworts; the mimulus and ground pine;
+the samphire and sea-rocket; the mullein and the teazle; and not least,
+the herb Paris, with that large quadruple "love-knot" into which its
+leaves are fashioned. But it must suffice to speak of one more.
+
+The fritillary, which shall close the list, is quaint to the point of
+being bizarre: its various names bear witness to the freakishness of its
+apparel--"guinea-flower," "turkey-hen," "chequered lily,"
+"snake's-head," and so forth. It was aptly described by Gerarde as
+"chequered most strangely. . . . Surpassing the curiousest painting that
+art can set down"; and in addition to this gorgeous colouring, the
+bell-like shape and heavy poise of its flower-heads contribute to the
+striking effect. From Gerarde to W. H. Hudson, who has portrayed it
+very beautifully in his _Book of a Naturalist_, the fritillary has been
+fortunate in its chroniclers; in its name, which it shares with a
+handsome family of butterflies, it can hardly be said to have been
+fortunate. For apart from the consideration that it is no great honour
+to a fine insect or flower to be likened to that instrument of human
+folly, a dicebox (_fritillus_), there is the practical difficulty of
+pronouncing the word as the dictionaries tell us it must be pronounced,
+with the accent on the first syllable; and not the dictionaries only,
+but the poets, as in Arnold's oft-quoted but very cacophonous line:
+
+    I know what white, what purple fritillaries. . . .
+
+Why must so quaintly charming a flower be so barbarously named that
+one's jaw is well-nigh cracked in articulating it?
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS
+
+    A gaily chequered, heart-expanding view,
+    Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
+    Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
+
+    THOMSON.
+
+
+THAT part of Hertfordshire where the Chiltern Hills, after curving
+proudly round from Tring to Dunstable, and almost rivalling the South
+Downs in shapeliness, die away at their north-east extremity, over
+Hitchin, to a bare expanse of ploughland, has the aspect of a broad
+plain swept by all winds of heaven, but is found, when explored, to be
+by no means devoid of charm. There, by a paradox, the very extent of the
+great hedgeless cornfields, reclaimed from the wild, gives the landscape
+a sort of wildness; it is in fact the district whence the Royston crow
+got its name, that hooded outlaw to whose survival a wide tract of open
+country was indispensable; and there is a pleasure in wandering over it
+which is unguessed by the traveller who rushes through in an express to
+Cambridge, and marvels at the tameness of the land.
+
+The wildflowers of cultivated fields are as distinctive as those of
+heath or hillside. It would be difficult to name any two more beautiful
+"weeds" than the succory and the corn "blue-bottle"--the light blue and
+the dark blue; both have deservedly won their "blues"--and when to these
+is added the corn-cockle (_lychnis githago_), the rich veined purple of
+its petals set off by the long pointed green sepals and leaves, what
+handsomer trio could be wished? Unhappily these flowers have become much
+scarcer than they used to be; but in the Hertfordshire fields they are
+still frequently to be admired.
+
+The intensive culture of which we nowadays hear so much has this
+drawback for the botanist, that it is robbing him of some plants which
+he is very loth to lose. The most striking of these, perhaps, is that
+quaint "perfoliate" of which I have already spoken, the thorow-wax or
+hare's-ear, which in Gerarde's time was so plentiful in the wheatland as
+to be what he calls its "infirmitie": now it is decidedly rare. I have
+never been so fortunate (except in dreams) as to see it _in situ_; but I
+have for several years grown it from the seed of a specimen gathered by
+a friend in the cornfields near Baldock, and have always been impressed
+by its elegance. It is a delicate and fastidious plant, thriving only,
+as I have noticed, when the conditions are quite favourable: this may
+account for its steady diminution in many counties, while coarser and
+hardier weeds are legion.
+
+A more abiding "infirmitie" of some Hertfordshire cornfields is the
+crow-garlic, a wild onion whose pink umbels often surmount the crop in
+hundreds. Wishing to learn their local name, I once asked a farm-hand at
+Letchworth what he called the flowers. After gazing at them sternly, he
+said to me: "They're _not_ flowers. They're a disease." I suggested that
+whatever their demerits might be from the point of view of an
+agriculturist, they must, strictly speaking, be regarded as flowers:
+this he grudgingly conceded; but as if regretting to have made so large
+an admission, he called after me, as I left him: "They're a disease."
+His pertinacity on this point reminded me of the reaffirmations of Old
+Kaspar, in Southey's poem, "After Blenheim":
+
+    "Nay, nay" ... quoth he,
+      "It was a famous victory."
+
+The crow-garlic, as it happens, is rather a pretty plant; and the
+opprobrious name "disease" might be much more suitably assigned to the
+tall broom-rape, an unwholesome-looking parasite which lives rapaciously
+at the expense of the great knapweed, and is occasionally met with in
+the district of which I am speaking.
+
+An extremely local umbellifer, said to have been formerly so abundant
+about Baldock that pigs were turned out to fatten on its roots, is the
+bulbous caraway, which looks like a larger edition of the common
+earth-nut. None of the country-folk whom I questioned seemed to have any
+knowledge of its uses; from which it would appear that its virtues,
+like those of many once famous herbs, have been forgotten in these
+sceptical modern times. It is well, perhaps, that _carum bulbocastanum_
+should be saved from the pigs; for in that unlovely region its white
+umbels serve to lighten up the monotony of the waysides.
+
+An unexpected discovery is always welcome. In a waste field, about a
+mile from Royston, I once found a tall branching plant with an abundance
+of yellow cruciferous flowers, which I should not have recognized but
+for the fact that a year or two previously my friend Edward Carpenter
+had sent me a specimen from Corsica. It was the woad, famous as the
+source of the blue dye with which the ancient Britons stained
+themselves. A mere "casual" in Hertfordshire, it is said to be
+established in a few chalk-quarries near Guildford and elsewhere.
+
+Thus far I have spoken of none but field flowers; but the district does
+not consist wholly of cultivated land, for even in that wilderness of
+tillage there are oases which have never felt the plough, and where the
+flora is of a different order. Therfield Heath, near Royston, is one of
+them, a grassy slope where the handsome purple milk-vetch is plentiful,
+and one may find, though in less abundance, the sprightly field
+fleawort, which seems more familiar as an ornament of the high chalk
+Downs.
+
+Nor are water springs wanting in the bare ploughlands. The little river
+Ivel, which leaps suddenly to light near Baldock, and thence races
+northward to join the Bedfordshire Ouse, is a clear trout-stream by
+whose banks it is pleasant (whatever the trespass notices may threaten)
+to wander, and to watch the quick-glancing fish. At the hamlet of
+Radwell, in a moist copse, there is a patch of the rare monk's-hood, a
+poisonous flower of which later mention will be made. A joint tributary
+of the Ouse, and not less inviting, is the oddly named Hiz, which has
+its source on Oughton Common, a boggy flat near Hitchin, where both the
+butterwort and the grass of Parnassus are recorded as having grown and
+may perchance be growing still: as for the marsh orchis, one cannot
+cross the Common without seeing it.
+
+Then at Ickleford, a village on the banks of the Hiz, there is a pond
+which has been "occupied" (to use a military term) by the water-soldier,
+a stout aquatic which takes its name from the rigid swordlike leaves
+enclosing the three-petaled flowers. Peculiar to the eastern counties,
+this water-soldier is said to have been introduced at Ickleford over
+half a century ago; and there it now makes a fine array, having thriven
+wonderfully in spite of the worn-out pots and pans, and other refuse,
+for which, in Hertfordshire as elsewhere, the nearest pool or stream is
+thought a fit receptacle.
+
+A mile or two west of the source of the Hiz at Oughton Head, stands High
+Down, where begins or ends, according to the direction of the wayfarer,
+the northern escarpment of the Chilterns, at this point crossed,
+recrossed, and crossed again, by the curiously indented boundary-line
+between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; and here on the steep front of
+the Pirton and Barton hills, in the one county or the other, may be seen
+in early spring the most beautiful of English anemones, the
+pasque-flower. On the few occasions when I have visited the place the
+summer was well advanced, and I was too late for that gorgeous flower; I
+had to content myself with the pyramidal orchis at the foot of the
+hills, and with great blossoming sheets of white candytuft in the fields
+above.
+
+For all these excursions there is no better starting-point than
+Letchworth, first of Garden Cities, which has sprung rapidly into being
+from what was until recent years an unadorned expanse of agricultural
+ground with Norton Common as its centre. This Common, originally a bit
+of wild fen, now almost surrounded by cottages and gardens, is to the
+nature-lover the most attractive feature of Letchworth; and though its
+flora has inevitably suffered from the inroads of the juvenile
+population, it can still show such plants as the marsh orchis, the small
+valerian, and the rare sulphur-coloured trefoil. It is watered by a
+diminutive river--the unceremonious might say ditch--known as the Pix,
+whose current, like that of the Cam, would almost seem to be determined
+by the direction of the wind, but is reputed to flow northward, to join
+its fleeter brethren, the Hiz and the Ivel, in their course to the
+Ouse.
+
+I mention this rather forlorn stream, because it has sometimes occurred
+to me that, as an attempt is made to protect the wild birds on Norton
+Common, it might be expedient to lend a helping hand also to the
+flowers, or even to embellish the banks of the Pix (and so to re-invite
+the pixies to sport thereby), with a few hardy riverside plants, such as
+comfrey, tansy, hemp-agrimony, purple loosestrife, and yellow
+loosestrife, which were probably once native there, and would almost
+certainly flourish in such a spot. Is it legitimate thus to come to the
+rescue of wild nature? That is a question on which botanists are not
+quite agreed, and its consideration shall therefore be reserved for the
+following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE SOWER OF TARES
+
+    An enemy hath done this.
+
+
+THE sowing of wildflowers is deprecated by some botanists, presumably as
+an interference with natural processes, an unauthorized attempt to play
+Providence in the vegetable kingdom; but the subject is one that seems
+to call for fuller discussion than it usually receives.
+
+We are told in the parable that the man who sowed tares among the wheat
+was an enemy; and certainly if there was an intention to injure the crop
+the expression was not too strong. But I have sometimes wondered whether
+the reprehensible act may not have been that of some botanical
+enthusiast, who, loving wildflowers not wisely but too well, was trying
+to save from extinction some rare weed of the cornfields which was
+disappearing under improved methods of culture.
+
+That this way of augmenting the flora of a country is nowadays not
+uncommon may be guessed from the frequent occurrence in botanical works
+of the comment "probably planted." Only a few pages back, I referred to
+the case of a pond in Hertfordshire now strongly held by a battalion of
+water-soldiers, the descendants of imported plants. There is evidence,
+too, that the practice has occasionally been indulged in by naturalists
+of great distinction, an amusing instance being that of the venerable
+and much-respected Gerarde, whose description of the peony as growing
+wild near Gravesend drew from his editor, Johnson, the following remark:
+"I have beene told that our author himselfe planted the peionie there,
+and afterwards seemed to finde it there by accident; and I doe believe
+it was so, because none before or since have ever seene or heard of it
+growing wilde in any part of this kingdome."[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: _The Herball_, by J. Gerarde. Enlarged and amended by
+Thomas Johnson, 1636.]
+
+Again, it is stated in Canon Vaughan's _Wild Flowers of Selborne_ that
+Gilbert White himself "was once guilty of this misdemeanour." He sowed,
+not tares in wheat, but seeds of the grass of Parnassus in the Hampshire
+bogs, and sowed them according to his own statement unsuccessfully; it
+would appear, however, from what Canon Vaughan discovered that White was
+"more successful than he imagined." However that may be, the question
+that arises is whether a judicious extension of the range of wildflowers
+by the agency of man is really a thing to be censured. May not a
+flower-lover occasionally sow his "wild oats"?
+
+It must be admitted that the objections to such a practice are not
+retrospective, for if it be a misdemeanour, it is one that is condoned,
+perhaps hallowed, by time. For as it is impossible to draw a strict line
+between flowers that were accidentally imported or "escapes" from
+ancient gardens, and those that were planted deliberately, we wisely ask
+no questions in the case of old-established plants of foreign origin,
+but receive them into our flora as aliens that have become naturalized
+and are honourably classed as "denizens"; when they have once made good
+their tenure of the soil, it seems to matter little by what means they
+arrived. Thus, for example, the starry trefoil, which colonized the
+Shoreham shingles over a century ago, having apparently come as a
+stowaway on board some foreign ship, was not only tolerated but highly
+regarded by English botanists, and its recent destruction is felt to be
+a national loss. Would it have detracted from its value, if, as indeed
+may have happened, it had been purposely sown on the beach? On the
+contrary, it seems desirable that it should now be restored in that
+manner.
+
+Such planting, of course, if done at all, should be done circumspectly,
+and on a fixed principle, not as an amusement for irresponsible persons
+or children. I know a flower-lover who, in a district where that
+beautiful St. John's-wort, the tutsan, was dwindling through
+depredations, or through some unexplained malady, carefully restored
+the balance in a score or so of suitable spots; and surely such action
+was much to be commended. But it is not desired that everyone should be
+planting tutsan everywhere; nor is there any danger of such a fashion
+arising, for there is much less tendency to plant than to pluck, to
+create than to destroy; and for that reason it would be folly to
+reintroduce any rare plant like the lady's slipper, where the collector
+would quickly reap what the enthusiast had sown.
+
+Such was the objection, it seems to me, to a proposal made some years
+ago by Edward Carpenter and others, that the diminishing numbers of the
+rarer butterflies should be reinforced by breeding. One would not
+willingly repeat the comedy of the angling craze, which solemnly stocks
+rivers with fish in order to pull them out again for pastime.
+
+Nor, because _some_ planting of wildflowers may be unobjectionable, does
+it follow that all such enterprises are deserving of praise. A recent
+announcement that the Llanberis side of Snowdon, a locality rich in
+British mountain flowers, was being sown by Kew experts with the seeds
+of a number of "Alpines" from Switzerland, was likely to be more
+agreeable to rock-gardeners than to mountain-lovers, who have a regard
+for the distinctive character of Snowdon itself, and of its native
+flora. A country which has allowed its finest mountain to be exploited
+for commercial purposes, as Snowdon has been, is perhaps hardly in a
+position to protest against a Welsh hillside being planted with alien
+Swiss flowers, and even with Chinese rhododendrons; but nevertheless
+such schemes are thoroughly incongruous and barbaric. What sort of
+mountains do we desire to have? A piece of nature, or a nursery-garden?
+A Snowdon, or a Snowdon-cum-Kew?
+
+Be it understood, then, that the sowing of tares is by no means
+recommended as a practice: all that is here urged is that a sweeping
+condemnation of it is not warranted by the facts, inasmuch as
+circumstances, not dogma, must in each case decide whether it be
+blameworthy, or harmless, or beneficial. And apart from common sense,
+there is one natural safeguard which will prevent any undue growth of
+wildflowers, viz. the remarkable fastidiousness of the choicer plants in
+regard to soil and conditions: they will flourish where it suits them to
+flourish, not elsewhere. Certain auxiliaries, too, Nature has in the
+rabbits, water-voles, and other wild animals that are herbivorous in
+their tastes; for it is very interesting to observe how quickly the
+appearance of a strange plant will attract the attention of such
+gourmands.
+
+I was once the owner of a sloping meadow in which there were some
+springs; and thinking it would be pleasant to have a water-garden I had
+a small pond made, into which I introduced some aquatic plants, and
+among them, most accommodating of all, the water-violet, which grew
+lustily and sent up a number of its graceful stalks with whorls of pink
+blossoms. But just at that time a water-vole took up his residence
+there, and developing a remarkable fondness for a new savour in his
+salads, quickly made havoc of my _Hottonia palustris_. The neighbours
+assured me I must trap him; but to treat a fellow-vegetarian in that way
+was out of the question, especially as his confidence in me was so great
+that he would sit nibbling my favourite aquatic, which seemed also to be
+_his_ favourite, while I stood within a few yards. It was clear that if
+the cult of the water-violet involved the killing of the water-vole it
+had got to be abandoned.
+
+In this way, among others, does Nature protect herself against an
+excessive interference on man's part with the distribution of
+wildflowers.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+DALES OF DERBYSHIRE
+
+    Deeper and narrower grew the dell;
+    It seemed some mountain, rent and riven,
+    A channel for the stream had given,
+    So high the cliffs of limestone gray
+    Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+THE limestone Dales of Derbyshire are narrow and deep, and their
+streams, when visible (for they often lurk underground), are swift,
+strong, and of crystal clearness. The sides of the glens are in some
+places precipitous with bluffs and pinnacles of grey rock; in others,
+ridged and streaked with terraces of alternate crag and turf; above the
+cliffs there is often a tableland of bleak pastures divided by stone
+walls, as dreary a scene as could be imagined, when contrasted with the
+picturesque dales below.
+
+The flowers of these limestone valleys immediately recall those of the
+chalk: the marjoram, the basil, the great knapweed, the traveller's-joy,
+the rock-rose, the musk-thistle--these and many other familiar friends
+make us seem, at first sight, to be back in Sussex or Surrey. But in
+reality we are a hundred and fifty miles nearer to the arctic zone, and
+that difference is clearly reflected in the flora; for when we look
+around, a number of new plants make their appearance, of which a dozen
+or more are very rare, or quite unknown, in the south. I once lived for
+several years on the hills above Chesterfield, a good way to the east of
+this limestone country; and to visit the nearest of the Dales there was
+a walk of seven miles, to and fro, across the intervening high moors
+that form the southern buttress of the Pennines. Stoney Middleton is far
+from being one of the pleasantest of Peakland villages; but such was the
+interest of its flora that the fourteen-mile trudge, and more, was often
+undertaken during the summer months.
+
+After traversing the great heathery moors devoted to the cult of the
+grouse, and descending from the rocky rampart of gritstone known as
+Curbar Edge, one crosses the valley of the Derwent; and here a pause may
+be made to notice a patch of sweet Cicely, one of the loveliest of the
+umbelliferous tribe. It is a charming sight, as it stands up tall in the
+sunshine, with its soft feathery cream-white masses of foliage and its
+fernlike leaflets; too fair and fragile, it would seem, for human hands,
+for it droops very soon if cut. Every part of it--stalk, leaves,
+flowers, and fruit--has the same aromatic fragrance (its local name is
+"anise"), and so gracious is it to sight, scent, and touch, that one
+longs to bathe one's senses in its luxuriance.
+
+Middleton Dale, naturally beautiful, but sadly deformed by lime-kilns,
+is famous for a cliff known as the Lover's Leap, from which an enamoured
+maiden is said to have thrown herself down. Had it been the love of
+flowers, rather than of man, that tempted her to that dizzy verge, there
+would have been no cause for surprise; for there are many alluring
+plants on the ledges of the scarp, including a brilliant show of wild
+wallflowers. In May and June there may be found along the northern side
+of the dale the yellow petals of the spring cinquefoil (_potentilla
+verna_), a gem of a flower, which, in Mr. Reginald Farrer's words,
+"clings to the white cliff-face, and from far off you see a splash of
+gold on the greyness." A month later the equally attractive Nottingham
+catch-fly (_silene nutans_) will be abundant on the rocks; a plant of
+nocturnal habits which expands its petals and becomes fragrant in the
+evening, but "nods," as its Latin name avows, in the daytime, when it
+wears a sleepy and somewhat dissipated look, like a wassailer--a white
+campion that has been "on spree." By night its beauty is beyond cavil.
+
+On the lower slopes is a colony of a still stranger-looking flower, the
+woolly-headed thistle, whose involucre is so bulky, and its scales so
+densely wrapped in white down, that it has an almost grotesque
+appearance, as of a thistle with "swelled head." It is, however, a very
+handsome plant; and when growing in vast numbers, as I have seen it in
+one of its special haunts, near Wychwood Forest, in Oxfordshire, it
+makes a glorious spectacle.
+
+Of the three species of saxifrages--the rue-leaved, the meadow, and the
+mossy--that thrive along the bottom of the dale, the two former are
+southern as well as northern flowers; but the presence of the mossy
+saxifrage is a sign that we are in a mountainous region, and as such it
+is always welcome. With these grows the graceful vernal sandwort,
+another flower of the hills, and so often the companion of saxifrages
+that it is naturally associated with them in the mind.
+
+But Middleton Dale, the nearest to my starting-point, and therefore the
+most frequently visited by me, is much surpassed in floral wealth by the
+long valley of the Wye, which in its course from Buxton to Bakewell
+bears the names successively of Wye Dale, Chee Dale, Miller's Dale, and
+Monsal Dale. In one or another of these four glens nearly all the rarer
+limestone flowers have their station. You may find, for instance, three
+very local crucifers: the two whitlow-grasses, _draba incana_ and _draba
+muralis_, remarkable only as being scarce in other parts of the kingdom;
+and the really beautiful little _Hutchinsia_, with its tiny white
+blossoms and finely cut pinnate leaves. Jacob's-ladder, a handsome blue
+flower, very uncommon in a wild state, is also native on the bluffs and
+slopes in Chee Dale and elsewhere: in fact a stroll along almost any of
+the limestone escarpments will bring new treasures to sight.
+
+But the flower which I best love is one which grows by the
+streamside--in Wye Dale it is in profusion--the modest water-avens,
+often strangely undervalued by writers who describe it as "dingy." Thus
+in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ it is stated that this avens "is more
+remarkable for having been one of the favourites, the whims, the
+caprices of the great Linnæus, than for anything else: it is hard to say
+what, in a British meadow-weed, could so take the fancy of the Master."
+Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre
+goes on to say that "it is impossible to account, logically, for
+attachments and sympathies."
+
+Logic, truly, would be out of place in such a connection; but it is not
+difficult to understand Linnæus's feelings towards the water-avens.
+There is a rare beauty in the droop of its bell-like head, and in its
+soft and subdued tints--the deep rufous brown of the long sepals,
+through which peep the silky petals in hues that range from creamy white
+to vinous red, and all steeped in a quiet radiance as of some old
+stained glass. I must own to thinking it the most tenderly beautiful of
+all English wildflowers. The hybrid between the water-avens and the
+common avens is occasionally found by the Wye: one which I saw in
+Miller's Dale had green sepals and petals of pale yellow.
+
+The Alpine penny-cress (_thlaspi alpestre_), a crucifer native on
+limestone rocks, may be seen on the High Tor at Matlock, where it grows
+with the vernal sandwort on débris at the mouth of caves; a graceful
+little plant with white flowers and a smooth unbranched stem so closely
+clasped by the narrow leaves as to give it the look of a perfoliate.
+
+One other limestone district shall be mentioned; the hills round
+Castleton. Cave Dale, approached by a narrow gorge close to the village,
+is well worth the flower-lover's attention; for bleak and bare as it is,
+its slippery sides harbour some interesting plants, such as the mountain
+rue (_thalictrum minus_), and the scurvy-grass (_cochlearia alpina_),
+both in considerable quantity. In the Winnatts, too, the steep ravine
+which overhangs the road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith, one may
+find Jacob's-ladder and other rarities on the rocks; and the gorgeous
+mountain pansy (_viola lutea_) is not far distant on the upland heaths
+and pastures.
+
+The list is far from being exhausted; but enough has been said to show
+that there is no lack of entertainment among these limestone dales. To
+enter one of them, after crossing the moorland from the dreary coal
+district of east Derbyshire, is like stepping from penury to plenty,
+from wilderness to paradise: there is a change of colouring that
+instantly attracts the eye. Even in early spring the little shining
+crane's-bill decks the walls and lower rocks with its rose-petaled
+flowers; and at midsummer the more showy stonecrop flings a veritable
+cloth of gold over the crags and lawns. Few localities present so many
+charming flowers in so limited a space.
+
+And now let us turn from the limestone valleys to those of the millstone
+grit.
+
+The controversy as to which part of Derbyshire best deserves the name of
+"The Peak" has always seemed a vain one, not merely because there is no
+peak in the county at all, but because no connoisseur can doubt for a
+moment that the district which alone has the true characteristics of a
+mountain is the great triangular plateau of gritstone known as
+Kinderscout. Less beautiful than the limestone dales, with their
+beetling crags and wealth of flowers, the wilder region surrounding "the
+Scout" has the advantage of being a real bit of mountain scenery, topped
+as it is with black "tors" and "towers" that rise out of the heather,
+and flanked with rocky "edges" from which its steep "cloughs" descend
+into the valleys below.
+
+Unfortunately, this great rocky tableland has of late years become
+almost a _terra incognita_ to the nature-lover, as a result of the
+agreement which was made, after prolonged controversy, between the Peak
+District Society and the grouse-shooting landlords, inasmuch as, while
+permitting the traveller to skirt the shoulders of the hill, it excluded
+him wholly from its summit.
+
+With the exception of the heather, the bilberry, and a few kindred
+species, the plants of the gritstone hills are sparse; but there is
+one, the cloudberry--so-called, according to Gerarde's rather
+magniloquent description, because "it groweth naturally upon the tops of
+high mountains ... where the clouds are lower than the tops of the same
+all winter long"--which well repays a pilgrimage. It is a prostrate and
+spineless bramble (_rubus chamæmorus_), highly valued in northern
+countries for its rich orange-coloured fruit. It grows thickly on the
+ground, making a dark-green patch in marked contrast to the coarse
+herbage; and towards the end of June one may see a profusion of the
+large white blossoms and a few early formed berries at the same time.
+There is a good-sized plot of it near the summit of the pass that
+crosses the shoulder of Kinderscout from Edale Head.
+
+But of the plants that grow on the Scout itself I am unable to speak;
+for my only visit to it--not reckoning an unsuccessful attempt when I
+was turned back by a keeper--took place in the depth of a very snowy
+winter. It was on the afternoon of a frosty January day, when the sun
+was already low, that in the company of my friend Bertram Lloyd, and
+armed with a passport, in the form of a letter of permission, given us
+by the courtesy of one of the owners of the shooting, I climbed from
+Edale, through the region of right-of-way into that of flagrant
+trespass. We felt an unusual sense of legality, as we passed a
+weather-beaten notice-board, with a half-obliterated threat that
+trespassers would be "--cuted," whether executed, electrocuted, or
+prosecuted was left to the imagination of the offender; and I think the
+strangeness of his position was rather embarrassing to my companion, who
+is such a confirmed trespasser that he feels as if something must be
+amiss unless there is a gamekeeper to be reckoned with--like the
+mountain ram, in Thompson-Seton's story, who was so accustomed to be
+hunted that he became moody and restless when his pursuer was not in
+sight.
+
+But, at the time of our visit, no passport was demanded; for the
+keepers, like the grouse themselves, appeared to have deserted the
+heights for the valleys. Indeed, hardly any life at all was to be seen,
+with the exception of a grey mountain hare, couched upon a stack of
+rock, who regarded us with a mild and curious eye as we passed some two
+hundred feet above him, and seemed to be satisfied that we were
+harmless. Nor was this lack of life surprising, for a more desolate
+scene could hardly be imagined--a great snow-clad "moss," intersected by
+deep ruts, which, being choked with snow, had somewhat of the appearance
+of crevasses, and punctuated here and there with the black masonry of
+the tors. From the highest point that we reached, marked in the ordnance
+map as 2,088 feet, there was a wonderful sunset view, though the
+Manchester district that lies to the west of the Scout was hidden in
+lurid fog. It is said that Snowdon, a hundred miles distant, has been
+seen from this point. It was certainly not visible upon the occasion to
+which I refer.
+
+It is impossible to visit this high mountain plateau, lying as it does
+at about an equal distance from Manchester and Sheffield, without
+feeling that what is now a private grouse-moor must, before many years
+have passed, become a nationalized park or "reservation"--a playground
+for the dwellers in the great Midland cities, and a sanctuary for wild
+animals and plants.
+
+The time will assuredly come when the sport of the few will have to give
+way to the health and recreation of the many.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+NO THOROUGHFARE!
+
+    Trespassers will be prosecuted.
+
+
+THE subject of trespassing mentioned in the preceding chapter, has a
+very close and personal interest for the adventurous flower-lover; for
+of all incentives to ignore the familiar notice-board with its hackneyed
+words of warning, none perhaps is more potent than the possibility that
+some rare and long-sought wildflower is to be found on the forbidden
+land. The appeal is one that no explorer can resist. If "stout Cortez"
+himself, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific, had seen that
+ocean labelled as "strictly private and preserved," could he have
+desisted from his quest?
+
+There is moreover a good deal to be said in extenuation of trespassing
+as a summer recreation; and if landlords go on at their present rate, in
+closing footpaths and excluding the public from green fields and
+hedgerows, trespassing will perhaps establish itself as one of our
+recognized national diversions. Hitherto, it must be confessed, it has
+remained to some extent in disrepute; doubtless, through its being so
+largely indulged in by poachers and other evil-doers, who have given a
+bad name to a practice which in itself is innocent and blameless enough.
+Most people, especially landlords and gamekeepers, have a fixed belief
+that a trespasser's purpose must be a lawless and mischievous one. Why
+so? Is it not possible that some trespassers may have other objects than
+to steal pheasants' eggs or snare rabbits? If huntsmen when following
+the hounds are permitted, not only to trespass, but to damage crops and
+fences, why should the naturalist be molested when harmlessly following
+his own inclinations in choice of a country ramble. Is the pursuit of
+the fox a surer proof of honest intentions than the pursuit of natural
+history? It appears that some landowners think so. "Trespassers will be
+prosecuted," say the notices that everywhere stare us in the face.
+
+Was there ever such a lying legend? Trespassers will _not_ be
+prosecuted, for the sufficient reason that in English law trespassing is
+not an offence. Of course, if any injury be done to property, the owner
+can sue for damages, but a harmless trespasser can only be requested to
+depart, though, if he be ill-advised enough to refuse to go, he may be
+forcibly ejected. We see, therefore, that the threatened "prosecution"
+of trespassers is in reality merely a _brutum fulmen_ launched by
+landlords at a too credulous public, a pious fraud which has been far
+more efficacious than such kindred notices as "Beware the dog," or
+"Beware the bull," though these, too, have done good service in their
+time. Trespassers will not be prosecuted, provided that they do no sort
+of damage, and that if their presence is objected to they politely
+retire. With these slight precautions and limitations, a trespasser may
+go where he will, and enjoy the study of Nature in her most secluded and
+"strictly private" recesses. He thus himself becomes, in one sense, a
+lord of the soil; but his domain is far more extensive and unencumbered
+than that of any actual landlord. He enjoys all that is best in park,
+woodland, or mountain; and if he is "warned off" one estate he can
+afford to smile at the prohibition, since many other regions are open to
+him, and he can confidently look forward to a visit to fresh woods and
+pastures new on the morrow.
+
+In the course of these rambles the trespasser will probably, like
+Ulysses, have some curious experiences of men and of notice-boards. It
+is very instructive to observe the various types of the landlord class,
+and their different methods of treating the intruder whom they meet on
+their fields. There is the indignant landlord, who can scarcely conceal
+his wrath at the astounding audacity of one who is deliberately crossing
+his land without having come "on business." There is the despairing
+landlord, who has been so broken by previous invasions that he is now
+content with a shrug of the shoulders and a remark that the place is
+"quite private, you know." There is the courteous landlord, who
+politely assumes that you have lost your way, and naively offers to
+conduct you to the high-road by the shortest cut; and there is the
+mildly ironical, who, as in a case which I remember on a Surrey
+hillside, remarks as he passes you: "There goes my heather."
+
+I have heard it said that one can sometimes divine the character of a
+landlord from the wording of his notice-boards, and I believe from my
+own experiences that there is truth in the idea. Certainly the
+notice-board is the landlord's favourite method of defending the privacy
+of his estate, and for obvious reasons; for not only is it the least
+troublesome and expensive way of conveying the desired warning to
+would-be trespassers, but the salutary fiction regarding the
+"prosecution" of offenders is thus publicly and permanently impressed on
+the agricultural mind. There is not such entire uniformity in the
+wording of notice-boards as might be supposed. Of course by far the
+commonest form is the well-known "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be
+prosecuted as the law directs," in which the unconscious irony contained
+in the last four words has always struck me as especially delightful. To
+this is often added the words "and all dogs shot," in which the
+experienced trespasser will detect signs of a certain roughness and
+inhumanity of temperament on the part of the owner. More original forms
+of expression are by no means uncommon. Sometimes the warning is
+emphasized by the bold statement, indicating the possession by the
+landlord of humorous or imaginative faculties, that "the police have
+orders to watch." Sometimes, but more rarely, the personal element is
+boldly introduced, as in the assertion, which might formerly be seen on
+a notice-board in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Lake
+District, "This is my land. Trespassers, etc." In some cases the wording
+has evidently been left to the care of subordinates, and hence result
+some curiosities of literary composition. "Private. Beware of dogs," is
+an instance of this kind, in which the ambiguity of the allusion to
+dogs, whether those of the landlord or the trespasser, seems almost
+oracular. In these and other ways a certain zest is lent to the
+excursions or rather the _in_cursions, of the trespasser, which lifts
+them above the level of ordinary walking exercise.
+
+In the case of wealthy landowners, the duty of warning off the
+trespasser devolves on gamekeepers, who, being less emotional than their
+employers, are a far less interesting study. Stolid and furry, and
+apparently endowed with only the animal instincts of the victims whom
+they delight in tracking and trapping, they are by far the least
+intelligent people whom the trespasser encounters; they are, in fact, no
+better than breathing and walking notice-boards, with the disadvantage
+that they cannot be so absolutely disregarded. It is unwise to argue
+with them; for reason is at a discount in such encounters and there is
+the possibility, in some districts, of their having recourse to
+personal violence, in the knowledge that if the matter should come
+before local magistrates the keeper's word would be honoured in
+preference to that of the trespasser. There is a sanctity in the word
+"Preserve."
+
+An experience of this sort actually befell a friend of mine, who himself
+narrated it in print. A devoted botanist and nature-lover, he was twice
+in the same day found trespassing by a gigantic gamekeeper, who, on the
+second occasion, ended all parley in the manner described in the
+following "Mystical Ballad," wherein the writer has ventured somewhat to
+idealize the circumstances, though the story is based on the facts.
+
+PRESERVED.
+
+    A Poet through a haunted wood
+      Roamed fearless and serene,
+    Nor flinched when on his path there stood
+      A Form in Velveteen.
+
+    "Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead,
+      My footsteps shall not swerve."
+    "You're trespassing," the Vision said:
+      "This place is a preserve."
+
+    "How so? Is some dark secret here
+      Preserved? some tale of shame?"
+    The Spectre scowled, but answered clear:
+      "What we preserve is Game."
+
+    Yet still the Poet's heart was nerved
+      With Phantoms to dispute:
+    "Then tell me, why is Game preserved?"
+      The Goblin yelled: "To shoot."
+
+    "But Game that's shot is Game destroyed,
+      Not Game preserved, I ween."
+    It seemed such argument annoyed
+      That Form in Velveteen;
+
+    For swift It gripped him, as he spake,
+      And, making light the load,
+    Upheaved, and flung him from the brake
+      Into the King's high-road.
+
+    And as that Bard, still arguing hard,
+      High o'er the palings flew,
+    He vows he heard this ghostly word:
+      "We're not preserving _you_."
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Long time he lay on that highway,
+      Dazed by so weird a fall;
+    Then rose and cried, as home he hied:
+      "The Lord preserve us all!"
+
+I have often thought it was an error on the part of the trespassing poet
+not to explain to his assailant that he was a botanist; for "botanist,"
+as I can testify, is a blessed word which has a soothing effect upon
+many of the most irascible landowners or their satellites. Personally I
+never presume to call myself botanist, except when I am found
+trespassing, on which occasions I have rarely known it to fail. I recall
+a Saturday afternoon when, as I was rambling in a Derbyshire dale with
+Bertram Lloyd, and admiring the flowers, we were accosted by the owner
+in person, who inquired with a sort of suppressed fury whether we knew
+that we were on his estate. We said we were botanists, and the effect
+was magical; in less than a minute we were courteously permitted to go
+where we would and stay as long as we liked.
+
+For botany is regarded as a scientific study; and even sportsmen do not
+like to incur the reproach of being enemies to science. Their better
+feelings may be conveyed in a familiar Virgilian line:
+
+    _Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni._[15]
+
+[Footnote 15: Not so obtuse of heart we Tyrians are.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS
+
+    Where the most beautiful wildflowers grow, there man's
+    spirit is fed.--THOREAU.
+
+
+A LIMESTONE soil is everywhere rich in flowers--we have seen what the
+midland dales can produce--but it is especially so in the close
+neighbourhood of the sea. Two instances suggest themselves; one from a
+Carnarvonshire promontory, the Orme's Head; the other from Arnside
+Knott, in Westmorland.
+
+Fifty years ago the Great Orme was a wild and picturesque headland,
+girdled by a footpath which made a circuit of the beetling cliffs, and
+crossed by a few other tracks leading to the telegraph station at the
+summit, St. Tudno's Church, and elsewhere; but in most respects still in
+a primitive and unimpaired condition. I knew almost every yard of it as
+a boy; and I remember, among other attractions, a hermit who lived in a
+cave, and better still a wild cat--probably a fugitive from some
+Llandudno lodging-house--who had her home in a stack of rocks on the
+western side of the Head. On the western shore of the isthmus there was
+at that time only one house; it belonged to Dean Liddell, famous as
+joint author of the Greek dictionary distressfully known to generations
+of students as _Liddell and Scott._
+
+But now, owing to the "development" of Llandudno, this once beautiful
+foreland has become a place almost of horror, vulgarized by trams,
+motor-roads, golf-links, and all the appurtenances of "civilization;"
+and were it not for the wildflowers, it might well be shunned by those
+who knew it in old days. Flowers, however, are very tenacious of their
+established haunts, and the remark made in Mr. J. E. Griffith's _Flora
+of Carnarvonshire_ still holds good, that "the flora of this district is
+quite unique, in consequence of the number of species found here, and
+the rarity of many of them." The luxuriance of the flowers is indeed a
+sight which can almost make one forget the "improvements" that have
+ruined the scenery.
+
+Among the plants inhabiting the rocky banks above the shore are the blue
+vernal squill, the sea stork's-bill, sweet alyssum, hound's-tongue,
+hemlock, henbane, mullein, and tree-mallow: to these may be added what
+constitutes a herb-garden readymade--fennel, wormwood, vervain, white
+horehound, wild sage, succory, and Alexanders. On the higher cliffs are
+the curious samphire, pink thrift, white scurvy-grass, and great tufts
+of sea-cabbage, now rarer and more local than formerly, but here waving
+its pale yellow pennons in abundance. Most charming of all, the
+brilliant blood-red crane's-bill, together with two kinds of rock-rose
+(the hoary dwarf species as well as the common one), makes rich splashes
+of colour on the grey limestone ledges. A little back from the sea,
+among the bluffs that overhang the town, you may light upon the
+sleepy-looking catch-fly (_silene nutans_); the tiny Hutchinsia; and in
+one or two places the shrub cotoneaster, which is said to be native only
+upon the Great Orme. I have, however, seen it growing apparently wild at
+Capel Curig, and at a greater distance from houses than in its Llandudno
+station.
+
+Nor is it only the Great Orme that shows this floral wealth: the Little
+Orme has the rare Welsh stonecrop (_sedum Forsterianum_); and on another
+height in the same district, the small circular hill known as Deganwy
+Rocks, there is a profusion of flowers. When I revisited it a few years
+ago, not having set foot on it for nearly half a century, I found that
+the villas of Deganwy had crept up almost to the base of the rocks, and
+on another side there was--still worse--a camp of German prisoners, with
+armed sentries supervising their labours; yet even there, close above
+such scenes, were growing plants which might mark a memorable day in the
+annals of a flower-lover, notably the maiden pink and the
+milk-thistle--the "holy" thistle, as it is not inaptly called. The
+pinks, a lovely band, were sprinkled along the turf at the foot of the
+rocks; the thistles were almost at the top; between them on a stony
+ledge nestled a quantity of viper's bugloss, and with it some borage,
+two kindred plants which I had never before seen in company.
+
+Nearly all the members of the Borage group are interesting--lungwort,
+alkanet, forget-me-not, hound's-tongue, and bugloss--but the borage
+itself, a roadside weed in South Europe, and in this country merely an
+immigrant and "casual," is to me the most precious of all. My earliest
+recollections of it, I must own, are as an ingredient of claret-cup at
+Cambridge, its silver-grey stems floating in the wine with a pleasant
+roughness to the lip; but in those unregenerate days we did not know the
+real virtue of the herb, famous from old time, as Gerarde says, for its
+power "to exhilarate and make the mind glad, to comfort the heart, and
+for driving away of sorrow." And certainly, in another and better use,
+it _does_ comfort the heart and drive sorrow away; for its "gallant blew
+flowers" are of all blues the loveliest, and the black anthers give it a
+peculiarly poignant look which reminds one somehow of the wistfulness of
+a Gainsborough portrait. In the list of my best-beloved flowers it ranks
+among the highest.
+
+Looking north-east from the Orme's Head, one may see on a clear day,
+across some sixty miles of water, the limestone hills of Westmorland,
+reckoned as part of Lakeland, but geologically, botanically, and in
+general character a quite separate district. Arnside Knott, a bluff
+overlooking the estuary of the river Kent where it widens into
+Morecambe Bay, is the presiding genius of a tract of shore and forest to
+which the name of "Lily-land" has been given by Mr. J. A. Barnes in a
+sketch of Arnside, and which he describes as "a perfect paradise of
+wildflowers." Let us suppose ourselves transported thither, and see how
+the claim holds good.
+
+The lily of the valley is one of those favoured plants which are
+everywhere highly esteemed; even the man who in general cares but little
+for wildflowers takes this one to his heart, or, what is worse, to his
+garden. I have already quoted Mr. C. A. Johns's queer appreciation of
+this native British wildflower as "a universally admired garden plant."
+On the wooded hill known as Arnside Park the "May lily," as it used to
+be called (and here it is certainly not "of the valley"), covers many
+acres of ground, and justifies the title "Lily-land" as applied to the
+Arnside neighbourhood. What I found still more interesting was an almost
+equal abundance of the stone bramble (_rubus saxatilis_), which grows
+intermixed with the lilies over a large portion of the wood.
+
+On these Westmorland Cliffs, as in those of Carnarvonshire, the
+blood-red crane's-bill is conspicuous, but it is much less plentiful,
+nor are the outstanding flowers of the two localities the same. One of
+the commonest at Arnside is the tall ploughman's spikenard, known
+locally as "frankincense": and on the lawns that skirt the Knott one
+often sees the mountain-cudweed or "cat's-foot," the gromwell or "grey
+millet," and the beautiful little dwarf orchis. The district is rather
+rich in orchids; among others, I found the rare narrow-leaved
+helleborine (_cephalanthera ensifolia_) in the Arnside woods. The deadly
+nightshade is frequent; so, too, is the four-leaved herb-Paris, which a
+resident described to me as being here "almost a weed." But there are
+two other flowers that demand more special mention.
+
+In a lane near Arnside Tower, a ruin that lies below the Knott on its
+inland side, there is a considerable growth of green hellebore,
+apparently at the very spot where its presence was recorded two
+centuries ago. Though not a very rare plant, it is extremely local; and
+owing to its strongly marked features, the large palmate leaves and pale
+green flowers, is not likely to go unnoticed.
+
+But the rarest of Arnside flowers is, or was, another poisonous plant of
+the _ranunculus_ order, the baneberry, for which the writer of
+"Lily-land," as he tells us, "hunted for years without success; till its
+exact locality was at last revealed to me by one who knew, in a
+situation so obvious that I felt like a man who has hunted through every
+room in the house for the spectacles on his own nose." Years later, on
+my certifying that I was not a knight of the trowel, Mr. Barnes was so
+kind as to confide to me this same secret that had been kept hidden from
+the uninitiate; but I found that the small plantation which had been
+the home of the baneberry, almost within Arnside itself, had recently
+been cut down, and though a few of the plants were still growing along
+the side of the field, they had ceased to flower, and possibly by this
+time they have ceased to exist. Even as it was, I felt myself fortunate
+to have seen the baneberry in one of its few native haunts. The pale
+green deeply cut leaves are much handsomer than those of its relatives
+the hellebore and the monk's-hood. Its raceme of white flowers and its
+black berries are also known to me; but alas, only in a garden.
+
+Where flowers are concerned, there is little truth in the saying that
+"comparisons are odious"; on the contrary it is both pleasant and
+profitable to compare not only plant with plant, but the flora of one
+fertile district with that of another. The natural scenery of Arnside is
+yet unspoilt, and for that reason it now offers greater attractions to
+the nature-lover than the ruined charms of Llandudno; but if he were
+asked, for botanical reasons only, to choose between a visit to the Orme
+and a visit to the Knott, the decision might be a less easy one. "How
+happy could I be with either!" would probably be his thought.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH
+
+    It [rose-root] groweth very plentifully in the north of
+    England, especially in a place called Ingleborough Fels.
+
+    GERARDE.
+
+
+THERE is a tale by Herman Melville which deals with the strangeness of a
+first meeting between the inmates of two houses which face each other,
+far and high away, on opposite mountain ranges, and yet, though daily
+visible, have remained for years as mutually unknown as if they belonged
+to different worlds. It was with this story in my mind that I approached
+for the first time the moorland mass of Ingleborough, long familiar as
+seen from the Lake mountains, a square-topped height on the horizon to
+the south-east, but hitherto unvisited by me owing to the more imperious
+claims of the Great Gable and Scafell. But now, at last, I found myself
+on pilgrimage to Ingleborough; the impulse, long delayed, had seized me
+to stand on the summit of the Yorkshire fell, and, looking
+north-westward, to see the scene reversed.
+
+Another of Ingleborough's attractions was that it is the home of
+certain scarce and beautiful flowers, as has been pointed out in Mr.
+Reginald Farrer's interesting books on Alpine plants. Such exceptional
+rarities as the baneberry (_actæa spicata_), which grows among rocky
+crevices high up on the fell--not to mention the _arenaria gothica_,
+choicest of the sandworts--the mere visitor can hardly hope to discover;
+but there are other and less infrequent treasures upon the hill, beyond
+which my ambition did not aspire.
+
+As I ascended the barren marshy slopes that form the eastern flank, I
+realized once again how much more the labour of an ascent depends upon
+the character of the ground than upon the actual height to be scaled.
+Ingleborough is under 2,400 feet; yet it is far more toilsome to climb
+than many a rocky peak in Wales or Cumberland that rises hundreds of
+feet higher, and it is a relief at length to get a firm foothold on the
+rocks of millstone grit which form the summit. Thence, from the edges
+which drop sharply from the flat top, one looks out on the somewhat
+desolate fells stretching away on three sides--Pen-y-ghent to the east,
+Whernside to the north, and to the south the more distant forest of
+Pendle--but westward there is the gleam of sand or water in Morecambe
+Bay, and the eye hastens to greet the dim but ever glorious forms of the
+Lakeland mountains.
+
+In the affections of the mountain-lover Ingleborough can never be the
+rival of one of these; indeed, in the strict sense, it is not a
+mountain at all, but a high moor built on a base of limestone with a cap
+of grit. Still, there is grandeur in the steep scarps that guard its
+central stronghold; and its dark summit, when viewed from a distance
+crowning the successive tiers of grey terraces, has a strength and
+wildness of its own, and even suggests at points a likeness to the
+massive tower of the Great Gable. To one looking down from the topmost
+edges on the scattered piles of limestone below, the effect is very
+curious. You see, perhaps, a mile or two distant, what looks at first
+sight like a flock of sheep at pasture, but is soon discovered to be a
+stone flock which has no mortal shepherd. In other parts are wide white
+plateaux which, when visited, turn out to be a wilderness of low flat
+rocks, everywhere weather-worn and water-worn, scooped and scalloped
+into cells and basins, and so intersected by channels filled with ferns
+and grasses that one has to walk warily over it as over a reef at low
+tide.
+
+But to return to the flowers. At the summit were mossy saxifrage and
+vernal sandwort; and on the cliffs just below, to the western side, the
+big mountain stonecrop, rose-root, not unhandsome with its yellow
+blossoms, flourished in some abundance, even as it did when Gerarde
+wrote of it, nearly three hundred years ago. The purple saxifrage, an
+early spring flower, is also found on these rocks, but at the time when
+I visited the spot, in late June, its blossoming season was over, and
+nothing was visible but the leaves. There was little else but some
+hawkweeds; I turned my attention, therefore, to the flowers of the lower
+slopes.
+
+There is nothing more delightful, in descending a mountain, than to
+follow the leading of some rapid beck from its very source to the
+valley; and it is rather disconcerting, in these limestone regions, that
+the cavernous nature of the ground should make the presence of the
+streams so intermittent, and that one's chosen companion should not
+unfrequently disappear, just when his value is most appreciated, into
+some "gaping gill" or pot-hole.
+
+It is said of Walt Whitman that sometimes when a pilgrim was privileged
+to walk with him, and was perhaps thinking that their acquaintance was
+ripening to friendship, the good grey poet, with a curt nod and a
+careless "good-bye," would turn off abruptly and be gone. Even so it is
+with these wayward streams that course down the sides of Ingleborough.
+Just when one is on the best of terms with them, they vanish and are no
+more.
+
+But with the bird's-eye primrose tinging hillsides and hollows with its
+tender hue of pink, no other companionship was needed. A mountain
+flower, it is the fairest of all the _Primulaceæ_, that band of fair
+sisters to which it belongs--primrose, cowslip, pimpernel, loosestrife,
+and money-wort--all beautiful and all favourites among young and old
+alike, whereever there is a love of flowers. It was worth while to make
+the pilgrimage to Ingleborough, if only to see this charming little
+plant in perfection on its native banks.
+
+Nor were other flowers lacking; the wild geraniums especially were in
+force. The shining crane's-bill gleamed on the pale limestone ledges;
+the wood crane's-bill, a local North-country species, gave a glint of
+purple in the copses at the foot of the fell; and still further down,
+below the village of Clapham, there were masses of the blue meadow
+crane's-bill (_geranium pratense_), the largest and not least handsome
+of the family. The water-avens was everywhere by the stream sides; and
+on a bank above the road the gladdon, or purple iris, was opening its
+dull-tinted flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL
+
+     He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a
+     preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to
+     the civilized man.--EMERSON.
+
+
+I HAVE referred several times to Henry Thoreau, of Concord, in whose
+_Journal_ a great deal is said about wildflowers; and as the volumes are
+not easily accessible to English readers it may be worth while to select
+therefrom a few of the more interesting passages. In all that he wrote
+on the subject Thoreau appears less as the botanist than the
+flower-lover; indeed, he expressly observes that he himself comes under
+the head of the "Botanophilists," as Linnæus termed them; viz. those who
+record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific
+standpoint. "I never studied botany," he said, "and do not to-day,
+systematically; the most natural system is so artificial. I wanted to
+know my neighbours, if possible; to get a little nearer to them." So
+great was his zest in cultivating this floral acquaintance that, as he
+tells us, he often visited a plant four or five miles from Concord half
+a dozen times within a fortnight, in order to note its time of
+flowering.
+
+Books he found, in general, unsatisfactory. "I asked a learned and
+accurate naturalist," he says, "who is at the same time the courteous
+guardian of a public library, to direct me to those works which
+contained the more particular popular account, or _biography_, of
+particular flowers--for I had trusted that each flower had had many
+lovers and faithful describers in past times--but he informed me that I
+had read all; that no one was acquainted with them, they were only
+catalogued like his books." It was the human aspect of the flower that
+Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw "pages
+about some fair flower's qualities as food or medicine, but perhaps not
+a sentence about its significance to the eye; as if the cowslip were
+better for 'greens' than for yellows." Thus he complained that botanies
+are "the prose of flowers," instead of what they ought to be, the
+poetry. He made an exception, however, in favour of old Gerarde's
+_Herball_.
+
+     His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly
+     superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not
+     according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He
+     brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted
+     in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His
+     leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are
+     green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to
+     a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe your object
+     in fresh English words rather than in these conventional
+     Latinisms!"
+
+Linnæus, too, "the man of flowers," as he calls him, is praised by
+Thoreau. "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the
+science. Read Linnæus at once, and come down from him as far as you
+please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how
+little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with
+Linnæus."
+
+Thoreau's manner of botanizing was, like most of his habits, somewhat
+singular. His vasculum was his straw-hat. "I never used any other," he
+writes, "and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its
+dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry-table, I
+assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box." With this
+vasculum he professed himself more than content.
+
+     I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in
+     midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I
+     could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours
+     that arise from the head--at least, if you take a bath--which
+     preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come
+     fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they
+     have had no sprinkling.
+
+The joy of meeting with a new plant, a sensation known to all searchers
+after flowers, is more than once mentioned in the _Journal_: the
+discovery of a single flower hitherto unknown to him makes him feel as
+if he were in a wealth of novelties. "By the discovery of one new plant
+all bounds seem to be infinitely removed." He notes, too, the not
+uncommon experience, that a flower, once recognized, is likely soon to
+be re-encountered. Seeing something blue, or glaucous, in a swamp, he
+approaches it, and finds it to be the _Andromeda polifolia_, which had
+been shown him, only a few days before, in Emerson's collection; now he
+sees it in abundance. At times he adopts the method of sitting quietly
+and looking around him, on the principle that "as it is best to sit in a
+grove and let the birds come to you, so, as it were, even the flowers
+will come."
+
+Swamps were among Thoreau's favourite haunts: he thinks it would be a
+luxury to stand in one, up to his chin, for a whole summer's day,
+scenting the sweet-fern and bilberries. "That is a glorious swamp of
+Miles's," he remarks; "the more open parts, where the dwarf andromeda
+prevails. . . . These are the wildest and richest gardens that we have."
+The fields were less trustworthy, because of the annual vandalism of the
+mowing. "About these times," he writes in June, "some hundreds of men,
+with freshly sharpened scythes, make an irruption into my garden when in
+its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can; and I
+am restricted to the rough hedges and worn-out fields which had little
+to attract them."
+
+Among Thoreau's best-beloved flowers, if we may judge by certain
+passages of the _Journal_, was the large white bindweed (_convolvulus
+sepium_), or "morning-glory." "It always refreshes me to see it," he
+writes; "I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over
+my morning walks and thoughts." Not less worthily celebrated by him, in
+another mood, are the wild rose and the water-lily.
+
+     We now have roses on the land and lilies on the water--both land
+     and water have done their best--now, just after the longest day.
+     Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with
+     the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender
+     petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet
+     queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the
+     water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid
+     rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a
+     green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour
+     belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water.
+
+It was not Thoreau's practice to pluck many flowers; he preferred, as a
+rule, to leave them where they were; but he speaks of the fitness of
+having "in a vase of water on your table the wildflowers of the season
+which are just blossoming": thus in mid-June he brings home some
+rosebuds ready to expand, "and the next morning they open and fill my
+chamber with fragrance." At another time the grateful thought of the
+calamint's scent suffices him: "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my
+mind to remember its fragrance."
+
+It was characteristic of Thoreau that he loved to renew his outdoor
+pleasures in remembrance, by pondering over the beautiful things he had
+witnessed, whether through sight or sound or scent. His mountain
+excursions were not fully apprehended by him, until he had afterwards
+meditated on them. "It is after we get home," he says, "that we really
+go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
+mountain do?" So it was with his flowers: even in the long winter
+evenings they were still his companions and friends.
+
+    I have remembered, when the winter came,
+    High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How, in the shimmering noon of summer past,
+    Some unrecorded beam slanted across
+    The upland pastures where the johnswort grew.
+
+On a January date we find him writing in his _Journal_: "Perhaps what
+most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we
+leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold
+is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." Thus, by memory,
+his winters were turned into summers, and his flower-seasons were
+continuous.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+FELONS AND OUTLAWS
+
+    The poisoning henbane, and the mandrake dread.
+
+    DRAYTON.
+
+
+THAT there are felonious as well as philanthropic flowers, plants that
+are actively malignant in their relation to mankind, has always been a
+popular belief. The upas-tree, for example, has given rise to many
+gruesome stories; and the mandrake, fabled to shriek when torn from the
+ground, has played a frequent part in poetry and legend; not to mention
+the host of noxious weeds, the "plants at whose names the verse feels
+loath," as Shelley has it:
+
+    And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,
+    And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank.
+
+The felons, however, of whom I would now speak are not the plants that
+seem merely foul and repulsive, such as the docks and nettles, the
+broom-rapes, toothworts, and similar ill-looking parasites, but rather
+the bold bad outlaws and highwaymen, the "gentlemen of the road," who,
+however deleterious to human welfare, have a sinister beauty and
+distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent
+among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself
+belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British
+flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better
+named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly
+described as "the deadly." So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three
+centuries ago exhorted his readers to "banish these pernicious plants
+out of your gardens, and all places near to your houses, where children
+do resort;" and modern writers tell us that the plant is "fortunately"
+of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live
+long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some
+abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and, _pace_
+Gerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a
+strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the
+large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black
+"wolf-cherries."[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: Rabbits eat the leaves without harm to themselves, but
+their flesh becomes injurious to human beings. A case of poisoning of
+this sort was lately reported from Oxted.]
+
+Next to the dwale in the nightshade family must rank the henbane, a
+fallen angel among wildflowers; for its beauty is of the sickly and
+fetid kind, which at once attracts and repels. It is curious that in the
+lines from Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" the epithet "dank" should be
+given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the
+henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the
+stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch.
+Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late
+years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be "common in
+waste places," one may visit hundreds of waste places without a glimpse
+of it. In the _Flora of the Lake District_ (1885) Arnside is given as
+one of its localities; but I was told by a resident that he had only
+once seen it there, and then it had sprung up in his garden.
+
+It is in similar places that the thorn-apple, another cousin to the
+nightshade, is apt to make its un-invited appearance; less a felon,
+perhaps, than a sturdy rogue and vagabond among flowers of ill repute. A
+year or two ago, I was told by the holder of an allotment-garden that a
+great number of thorn-apples were springing up in his ground; and
+knowing my interest in flowers he sent me a small basketful of the young
+plants, which, rather to my neighbours' surprise, I set out in a row,
+like lettuces, in a corner of my back-yard. There they flourished well,
+and in due course made a fine show with their trumpet-shaped white
+flowers and the big thorny capsules whence the plant takes its name. It
+is not a bad-looking fellow, but awkward and hulking, and quite devoid
+of the sickly grace of the henbane or of the bodeful gloom of the
+dwale.
+
+Passing now to the handsome but acrid tribe of the _ranunculi_, and
+omitting the poisonous but interesting baneberry, of which I have
+already spoken, we come to two formidable plants, the hellebore and the
+monk's-hood, which have been famous from earliest times for their
+dangerous propensities. The green hellebore, though in Westmorland named
+"felon grass," is a less felonious-looking flower than its close kinsman
+the fetid hellebore, whose general appearance, owing to the crude pale
+green of its purple-tipped sepals, and the reluctance of its globe-like
+buds to expand themselves fully, is one of insalubrity and unripeness.
+But it is a plant of distinction, some two or three feet in height; and
+as it flowers before the winter is well past, it can hardly fail to
+arrest attention in the few places where it is to be found: in Arundel
+Park, in Sussex, it may be seen growing in close conjunction with the
+deadly nightshade--a noteworthy pair of desperadoes.
+
+The other malefactor of the ranunculus family is the aconite, or
+monk's-hood, a poisonous but very picturesque flower with deep blue
+blossoms, which takes its name from the hood-like appearance of the
+upper sepal. "It beareth," Gerarde tells us, "very fair and goodly blew
+floures in shape like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would
+thinke they were of some excellent vertue." A traitor, a masked bandit
+it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man,
+"unless it can find in him something else to kill," some disease, to
+wit; and thus it holds its place in the pharmacopoeia.
+
+The umbellifers include a number of outlaws such as the water-dropworts
+and cowbane; but among the dangerous members of the tribe there is only
+one that attains to real greatness, and that of course is the hemlock, a
+poisoner of old-established renown, as witness the death of Socrates.
+"Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" is one of the ingredients in the
+witches' cauldron in _Macbeth_, and the hemlock's name has always been
+one to conjure with, which may account for the fact that several
+kindred, but less eminent plants unlawfully aspire to it, and are
+erroneously thus classed. But the true hemlock is unmistakable: the
+stout bloodspotted stem distinguishes it from the lesser crew; its
+finely cut fernlike leaves are exceedingly beautiful; and it is of
+stately habit--I have seen it growing to the height of nine feet, or
+more, in places where the surrounding brushwood had to be overtopped.
+
+Let us give their due, then, to these outlaws of whom I have spoken,
+these Robin Hoods of the floral world. Bandits and highwaymen they may
+be; but after all, our woods and waysides would be much duller if they
+were banished.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SOME MARSH-DWELLERS
+
+    Here are cool mosses deep.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+WHAT Thoreau wrote of his Massachusetts swamps is hardly less true of
+ours; a marsh is everywhere a great allurement for botanists. By a road
+which crosses a certain Sussex Common there is a church, and close
+behind the church a narrow swampy piece of ground known as "the great
+bog," which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet
+whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words: "_My_ temple is
+the swamp." For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the
+Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be
+hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being
+the home not only of a number of characteristic plants--lesser
+skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and
+the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw--but of one of our rarest and most
+beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old
+herbalists as the "marsh-felwort."
+
+The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at
+once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large
+funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green
+bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining
+banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the
+locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who
+cross the Common. On the afternoon in early September when I first found
+the place, a number of children were blackberrying there, and I dreaded
+every moment to see them turn aside to pick a bunch of the gentians,
+which doubtless would soon have been thrown aside to wither, as is the
+fate of so many spring flowers; but though the blue petals were
+conspicuous in the heather they were left entirely unmolested. For this
+merciful abstinence there were probably two reasons: one that the
+flower-picking habit is exhausted before the autumn; the other that the
+gentians, however beautiful, are not among the recognized
+favourites--daffodils, primroses, violets, forget-me-nots, and the
+like--that by long custom have taken hold of the imagination of
+childhood. Had it been otherwise, this rare little annual could hardly
+have survived so long.
+
+In botanical usage there seems to be no difference between the terms
+"marsh" and "bog," nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained
+distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belonging to a
+somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of
+what might be called "Anne-prattle," had so real a love of her subject
+that her best book, _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, affords very agreeable
+reading. "The distinction between a bog and a marsh," she says, "is
+simply that the latter is more wet, and that the foot sinks in; while on
+a bog the soft soil, though it yields to the pressure of the foot, rises
+again." The definition itself seems hardly to be based on _terra firma_;
+but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst,
+an adventurous botanist "is often rewarded for the temporary chill by
+the beauty of the plant which he has gathered." That is a consolation
+which I have not seldom enjoyed.
+
+But a pleasanter name, in my opinion, than either "marsh" or "bog," is
+one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties
+generally, viz. "a moss." It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an
+occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near
+Penrith, "the foot sank in," and a good deal more than the foot; but the
+acquaintance then made for the first time with that giant of the
+_ranunculus_ order, the great spearwort, was sufficient recompense, for
+who would complain of a wetting when he met with a buttercup four feet
+in stature?
+
+It so happened, however, that the plant in whose quest I had ventured on
+the precarious surface of the Newton Regny moss--the great
+bladderwort--was not to be found on that occasion, though it is
+reported to make a fine show there in August; possibly, in an early
+season, it had already finished its flowering, and had sunk, after the
+inconsiderate manner of its tribe, to the bottom of the pools. Nor did I
+see its rarer sister, the lesser bladderwort; with whom indeed I have
+only once had the pleasure of meeting, and that was in a rather awkward
+place, a deep pond lying close below a railway-bank, and overlooked by
+the windows of the passing trains, so that I not only had to swim for a
+flower, but to consult a time-table before swimming, in order to avoid
+having a "gallery" at the moment when seclusion was desired.
+
+Our North-country "mosses" are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by
+virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken
+succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of
+the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of
+Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is
+very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its
+strange purple blossoms as "dingy"--I allude to that wilder relative of
+the wild strawberry, the marsh-cinquefoil, which, though rather local,
+is in habit decidedly gregarious. For several years it had eluded me in
+a Carnarvonshire valley; until one day, wandering by the riverside, I
+came upon a swampy expanse where it was growing in hundreds, remarkable
+both for the deep rusty hue of its petals, and for the large
+strawberry-like fruit that was just beginning to form.
+
+Apart from the more extensive "mosses," the lower slopes of the
+mountains, both in Cumberland and Wales, are often rich in flowers
+unsuspected by the wayfarer, who, keeping to some upland track, sees
+nothing on either side but bare peaty moors that appear to be entirely
+barren. And barren in many cases they are. You may wander for miles and
+not see a flower; then suddenly perhaps, on rounding a rock, you will
+find yourself in one of these natural gardens in the wilderness, where
+the ground is pink with red rattle growing so thickly as to hide the
+grass; or white with spotted orchis, handsomer and in greater abundance
+than is dreamed of in the south; or, a still more glorious sight, tinged
+over large spaces with the yellow of the bog-asphodel, a plant which is
+beautiful in its fruit as well as its flower, for when the blossoms are
+passed the dry wiry stems turn to deep orange. Sun-dews are everywhere;
+the quaint and affable butterwort is plastered over the wet rocks; and
+the marsh St. John's-wort, so unlike the rest of its family that the
+relationship is not always recognized, is frequent in the spongy pools.
+
+Here and there, a small patch of pink on the grey heath, will be seen
+the delicate bog-pimpernel, which might take rank as the fairest flower
+of the marsh, were it not that the diminutive ivy-leaved campanula is
+also trailing its fairy-like form through the wet grasses, among which
+it might wholly escape notice unless search were made for it. To realize
+the perfection of its beauty--the exquisite structure of its small green
+leaves, slender thread-like stems, and bells of palest blue--you must go
+down on your knees to examine it, however damp the ground; a fitting act
+of homage to one of the loveliest of Flora's children.
+
+Better cultivation, preceded by improved drainage, is ceaselessly
+encroaching on our marshlands and lessening the number of their flowers.
+The charming little cranberry, for instance, once so plentiful that it
+came to market in wagonloads from the fens of the eastern counties, is
+now far from common; and our cranberry-tarts have to be supplied from
+oversea. But much more ravishing than the red berries are the
+rose-coloured flowers, though they are known to scarcely one in a
+thousand of the persons familiar with the fruit. I always think with
+pleasure of the day when I first saw them, on the Whinlatter pass, near
+Keswick, their small wiry stems creeping on the surface of the swamp, a
+feast for an epicure's eye. It is under the open air, not under a
+pie-crust, that such dainties are appreciated as they deserve.
+
+These, then, being some of the many attractions offered by our "mosses,"
+is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a
+modern "moss-trooper," and ride out over the border in search for such
+imperishable spoil? His part, indeed, is a much wiser one than that of
+the old freebooters; for who would risk life in the forcible lifting of
+other persons' cattle, when at the slight expense to which Anne Pratt
+alluded--the temporary chill caused by the sinking of his foot in a
+marsh--he can enrich himself far more agreeably in the manner which I
+have described?
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A NORTHERN MOOR
+
+    Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
+    Thundering o'er Caldron and High Force.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+A FIRST glance at the bleak and inhospitable moorland of Upper Teesdale
+would not lead one to suppose that it is famous for its flora. No more
+desolate-looking upland could be imagined; the great wolds stretch away
+monotonously, broken only by a few scars that overhang the course of the
+stream, and devoid of the grandeur that is associated with mountain
+scenery. No houses are visible, except a few white homesteads that dot
+the slopes--their whiteness, it is said, being of service to the farmers
+when they return in late evening from some distant market and are faced
+with the difficulty of finding their own doors. Its wildness is the one
+charm of the place; in that it is unsurpassed.
+
+But this bare valley, botanically regarded, is a bit of the far North,
+interpolated between Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire, where the
+Teesdale basalt or "whinstone" affords an advanced station for many
+rare plants of the highland type as they trend southward; and there, for
+five or six miles, from the upper waterfall of Caldron Snout to that of
+High Force, the banks of the Tees, with the rough pastures, scars, and
+fells that form its border, hold many floral treasures.
+
+The first flower to attract attention on these wild lawns is that queen
+of violets, the mountain pansy (_viola lutea_), not uncommon on many
+midland and northern heaths, but nowhere else growing in such
+prodigality as here, or with such rich mingling of colours--orange
+yellow, creamy white, deep purple, and velvet black--till the eye of the
+traveller is sated with the gorgeous tints. To the violet tribe this
+pansy stands in somewhat the same relation as does the bird's-eye
+primrose to the _primulas_; it is a mountain cousin, at once hardier and
+more beautiful than its kinsfolk of wood and plain. Seeing it in such
+abundance, we can understand why Teesdale has been described as "the
+gardener's paradise;" but the expression is not a fitting one, for
+"gardener" suggests "trowel," and the nurseryman is the sort of Peri to
+whom the gates of this paradise ought to be for ever closed.
+
+But perhaps the first stroll which a visitor to Upper Teesdale is likely
+to take, is by the bank of the river just above High Force; and here the
+most conspicuous plant is a big cinquefoil, the _potentilla fruticosa_,
+a shrub about three feet in height, bearing large yellow flowers. Rare
+elsewhere, it is in exuberance beside the Tees; and I remember the
+amused surprise with which a dalesman regarded me, when he saw my
+interest in a weed that to him was so familiar and so cheap.
+
+But the smaller notabilities of the district have to be personally
+searched for; they do not obtrude themselves on the wayfarer's glance.
+On the Yorkshire side of the stream stands Cronkley Scar, a buttress of
+the high moor known as Mickle Fell; and here, in the wet gullies, may be
+found such choice northern plants as the Alpine meadow-rue; the Scottish
+asphodel (_Tofieldia_), a small relative of the common bog-asphodel; and
+the curious viviparous bistort, another highland immigrant, bearing a
+spike of dull white flowers and small bulbs below.
+
+The fell above the scar is a desolate tract, frequented by golden plover
+and other moorland birds. On one occasion when I ascended it I was
+overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain, which compelled me to
+leave the further heights of Mickle Fell unexplored, and to retreat to
+the less exposed pastures of Widdibank on the opposite side of the Tees,
+here a broad but shallow mountain stream, which in dry weather can be
+forded without difficulty but becomes a roaring torrent after heavy
+rains. In the course of two short visits, one in mid-July, the other in
+the spring of the following year, I twice had the opportunity of seeing
+the river in either mood, first in unruffled tranquillity, then in
+furious spate.
+
+It is in May or early June that Teesdale is at the height of its glory;
+for the plant which lends it a special renown is the spring gentian,
+perhaps the brightest jewel among all British flowers, small, but a true
+Alpine, and of that intense blue which signalizes the gentian race. Here
+this noble flower grows in plenty, not in wide profusion like the
+pansies, but in large and thriving colonies, not confined to one side of
+the stream. It was on the Durham bank that I first saw it--one of those
+rare scenes that a flower-lover cannot forget, for the blue gentians
+were intermingled with pink bird's-eye primroses, only less lovely than
+themselves, and close by were a few spikes of the Alpine bartsia, whose
+sombre purple was in marked contrast with the brilliant hues of its
+companions.
+
+Of this rare bartsia I had plucked a single flower on my previous visit
+to the same spot, but then in somewhat hurried circumstances. I had been
+crossing the wide pastures near Widdibank farm in company with a friend,
+who, having heard rumours of the temper of Teesdale bulls, had unwisely
+allowed his thoughts to be somewhat distracted from the pansies. We were
+in the middle of a field of vast extent, when I heard my companion
+asking anxiously: "Is _that_ one?" It certainly _was_ one; not a pansy,
+but a bull; and he was advancing towards us with very unfriendly noises
+and gestures. We therefore retired as quickly as we could, without
+seeming to run--he slowly following us--in the direction of the river;
+and there, under a high bank, over which we expected every moment the
+bulky head to reappear, I saw the Alpine bartsia, and stooped to pick
+one as we fled, my friend mildly deprecating even so slight a delay.
+
+Now, however, on my second visit, I was able to examine the bank at my
+leisure, and to have full enjoyment of as striking a group of flowers as
+could be seen on English soil--gentian, bird's-eye primrose, Alpine
+bartsia--and as if these were not sufficient, the mountain pansy running
+riot in the pasture just above.
+
+So far, I have spoken only of the plants which I myself saw; there are
+other and greater rarities in Teesdale which the casual visitor can
+hardly expect to encounter. The yellow marsh-saxifrage (_S. hirculus_)
+occurs in two or three places on the slopes of Mickle Fell; so, too, in
+limestone crevices does the mountain-avens (_dryas octopetala_), and the
+winter-green (_pyrola secunda_); while on Little Fell, which lies
+further to the south-west, towards Appleby, the scarce Alpine
+forget-me-not is reported to be plentiful. I was told by a botanist
+that, in crossing the moors from Teesdale to Westmorland, he once picked
+up what he took for a fine clump of the common star-saxifrage, and
+afterwards found to his surprise that it was the Alpine snow-saxifrage
+(_S. nivalis_), which during the past thirty years has become
+exceedingly rare both in the Lake District and in North Wales.
+
+The haunts of the rarer flowers are not likely to be discovered in a day
+or two, nor yet in a week or two: it is only to him who has gone many
+times over the ground that such secrets will disclose themselves; but
+even the passing rambler must be struck, as I was, by the number of
+noteworthy plants that Teesdale wears, so to speak, upon its sleeve. The
+globe-flower revels in the moist meadows; so, too, do the water-avens
+and the marsh-cinquefoil, nor is the butterfly orchis far to seek; and
+though the yellow marsh-saxifrage may remain hidden, there is no lack of
+the yellow saxifrage of the mountain (_saxifraga aizoides_), to console
+you, if it can, for the absence of its rarer cousin. The cross-leaved
+bedstraw (_galium boreale_), another North-country plant, luxuriates on
+low wet cliffs by the river.
+
+Last, but not least, in the later months of summer, is the mountain
+thistle (_carduus heterophyllus_), or the "melancholy thistle" as it is
+often called--a title which seems to have small relevance, unless all
+plants of a grave and dignified bearing are to be so named. Do men
+expect to gather figs of thistles, that they should demand the simple
+gaiety of the cowslip or the primrose from such a plant as this, whose
+rich purple flowers, spineless stem, and large parti-coloured
+leaves--deep green above, white below--mark it as one of the most
+handsome, as it is certainly the most gracious and benevolent of its
+tribe?
+
+As I walked down the valley, on a wet morning in July, to take train at
+Middleton, twenty-four hours of rain had turned the river through which
+I had easily waded on the previous day, into a flood that was terrifying
+both in aspect and sound. It was no time for flower-hunting; but even
+then the wonders of the place were not exhausted; for along the
+hedgerows I saw in plenty that same stately thistle, which in most
+districts where it occurs is viewed with some interest and curiosity,
+but in Teesdale is a roadside weed--subject, I was shocked to observe,
+to the insolence of the passers-by, who, knowing not what they do,
+maltreat it as if it were some vulgar pest of the fields, a thing to be
+hacked at and trampled on. Even so, I saw in it a discrowned king, who
+"nothing common did or mean."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+APRIL IN SNOWDONIA
+
+     It is Easter Sunday . . . the hills are high, and stretch away to
+     heaven.--DE QUINCEY.
+
+
+SO wrote De Quincey in one of his finest dream-fugues. There seems, in
+truth, to be a certain fitness in the turning of men's thoughts at the
+spring season to the heights of the mountains, where, as nowhere else,
+the cares and ailments of the winter time are forgotten; and it is a
+noticeable fact that these upland districts are now as thronged with
+visitors during Easter week as in August itself. As I write, I am
+sitting by a wood fire under a high rock in a sheltered nook at Capel
+Curig, with a biting north-easter blowing overhead and an occasional
+snow-squall whitening the hillsides around, while the upper ridges are
+covered in places with great fields and spaces of snow, which at times
+loom dim and ghostly through the haze, and then gleam out gloriously in
+the interludes of sunshine. The scenery at the top of Snowdon, the
+Glyders, Carnedd Llewelyn, and the other giants of the district has been
+quite Alpine in character. The wind has drifted the snow in great
+pillowy masses among the rocks, or piled it in long cornices along the
+edges, and on several days when the air was at its keenest, the snow
+fields have been crisp and firm, and have afforded excellent footing as
+a change from the rough "screes" and crags; at other times, when the sun
+has shone out warmly, the snow has been soft and treacherous, and the
+spectacle has often been seen of the too trustful tourist struggling
+waistdeep.
+
+Mid-April in Snowdonia, when March has been cold and wet, shows scarcely
+an advance from midwinter as far as the blossoming of flowers is
+concerned. Down by the coast the land is gay with gorse and primroses,
+but in the bleak upland dales that radiate from the great mountains
+hardly a bloom is to be seen; nor do the river banks and marshy pastures
+as yet show so much as a kingcup, a spearwort, or a celandine. The
+visitors have come in their multitudes to walk, to climb, to cycle, to
+motor, to take photographs, or to take fish, as the case may be; but if
+one of them were to confess that he had come to look for flowers he
+would indeed surprise the natives--still more if he were to point to the
+upper ramparts of the mountains, among the rocks and snows and clouds,
+as the place of his design.
+
+Yet it is there that we must climb, if we would see the pride of the
+purple saxifrage, the earliest of our mountain flowers, blest by
+botanists with the cumbrous name of _saxifraga oppositifolia_, and
+often grown by gardeners, who know it as a Swiss immigrant, but not as a
+British native. A true Alpine, it is not found in this country much
+below 2,000 feet, and in Switzerland its range is far higher, for it is
+a neighbour and a lover of the snows. Small and slight as it may seem,
+when compared with some of its more splendid brethren of the Alps, it
+has the distinction of a high-bred race, the character of the genuine
+mountaineer. It is a wearer of the purple, in deed as well as in name.
+
+But our approach to the home of the saxifrage is not to be accomplished
+without toil, in weather which is a succession of boisterous squalls.
+Under such a gale we have literally to push our way in a five-mile walk
+to the foot of the hills, and as we climb higher and higher up the
+slopes we have a ceaselesstussle with the strong, invisible foe who
+buffets us from every side in turn, while he hisses against the sharp
+edges of the crags, or growls with dull subterranean noises under the
+piles of fallen rocks. As for the streams, they are blown visibly out of
+their steep channels and carried in light spray across the hillside,
+while sheets of water are lifted from the surface of the lake. Not till
+we reach the base of the great escarpment which forms the north-east
+wall of the mountain are we able to draw breath in peace; for there,
+under the topmost precipices, flecked with patches of snow, is a strange
+and blissful calm. But now, just when our search begins, the mists,
+which have long been circling overhead, creep down and fill the upland
+hollow where we stand, cutting off our view not only of the valley below
+but of the range of cliffs above, and confining us in a sequestered
+cloudland of our own. Still climbing along a line of snowdrifts which
+follows a ridge of rocks, and which serves at once as a convenient route
+for an ascent and a safe guide for a return, we scan the likely-looking
+corners and crevices for the object of our pilgrimage. At first in vain;
+and then fears begin to assail us that we may be doomed to
+disappointment. Can we have come too early, even for so early a plant,
+in a backward season? Or have some wandering tourists or roving knights
+of the trowel (for such there are) robbed the mountain-side of its
+gem--for this saxifrage, owing to the brightness of its petals on the
+grey and barren slopes, is so conspicuous as to be at the mercy of the
+passer-by.
+
+But even as we stand in doubt there is a gleam of purple through the
+mist, and yonder, on a boss of rock, is a cluster of the rubies we have
+come not to steal but to admire. What strikes one about the purple
+saxifrage, when seen at close quarters, its many bright flowerets
+peering out from a cushion of moss, is the largeness of the blossoms in
+proportion to the shortness of the stems; a precocious, wide-browed
+little plant, it looks as if the cares of existence at these wintry
+altitudes had given it a somewhat thoughtful cast. At a distance it
+makes a splash of colour on the rocks, and from the high cliffs above
+it hangs out, here and there, in tufts that are fortunately beyond
+reach.[17]
+
+[Footnote 17: For a charming description of the purple saxifrage, see
+_Holidays in High Lands_, by Hugh Macmillan (1869).]
+
+Having paid our homage to the flower, we leave it on its lofty throne
+among the clouds, and descend by snow-slopes and scree-slides to the
+windy, blossomless valley beneath. A month hence, when the season of the
+Welsh poppy, the globe-flower, and the butterwort is beginning, the
+reign of the purple saxifrage will be at an end. To be appreciated as it
+deserves, it must be seen not as a poor captive of cultivation, but in
+its free, wild environment, among the remotest fastnesses of the
+mountains.
+
+The wild animal life on the hills, so noteworthy in the later spring,
+seems as yet to have hardly awakened. We saw a white hare one afternoon
+on Carnedd Llewelyn, but that was the only beast of the mountains that
+crossed our path during eight days' climbing, nor were the birds so
+numerous as might have been expected. The croak of the raven was heard
+at times, in his high breeding-places, and on another occasion there was
+a triple conflict in the air between a raven, a buzzard, and a hawk. On
+the lower moorlands the curlew was beginning to arrive from his winter
+haunts by the seashore, and small flocks of gulls, driven inland by the
+winds, were hovering over the waters of Llyn Ogwen, where we saw several
+of them mobbing a solitary heron, who seemed much embarrassed by their
+onslaught, until he succeeded in getting his great wings into motion.
+
+But if bird-life is still somewhat dormant in these lofty regions, there
+have been plenty of human migrants on the wing. From our high
+watch-tower, we saw daily, far below us, the long line of
+motorists--those terrestrial birds of prey--speeding along the white
+roads, and flying past a hundred entrancing spots, as if their object
+were to see as little as possible of what they presumably came to see.
+Flocks of cyclists, too, were visible here and there, avoiding the cars
+as best they could, and drinking not so much "the wind of their own
+speed," in the poet's words, as the swirl and dust of the motors; while
+on the bypaths and open hillsides swarmed the happier foot-travellers,
+pilgrims in some cases from long distances over the mountains, or
+skilled climbers with ropes coiled over their shoulders and faces set
+sternly towards some beetling crag or black gully in the escarpment
+above. In one respect only are they all alike--that they are birds of
+passage and are here only for the holiday. Soon they will be gone, and
+then the ancient silence will settle down once more upon the hills, and
+buzzard and raven will be undisturbed, until July and August bring the
+great summer incursion.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+FLOWER-GAZING _IN EXCELSIS_
+
+    I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
+    What wealth the show to me had brought.
+
+    WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+THERE is no more inspiring pastime than flower-gazing under the high
+crags of Snowdon. The love of flowers reveals a new and delightful
+aspect of the mountain life, and leads its votaries into steeps and
+wilds which, as they lie aloof from the usual ways of the climber, might
+otherwise escape notice. It must be owned that our Cumbrian and Cambrian
+hills are not rich in flowers as Switzerland is rich; one cannot here
+step out on the mountain-side and see great sheets of colour, as on some
+Alpine slope; and not only must we search for our treasures, but we must
+know _where_ to search. They do not grow everywhere; much depends on the
+nature of the soil, much on the altitude, much on the configuration of
+the hills. There are great barren tracts which bear little but heather
+and bilberry; but there are rarer beds of volcanic ash and calcareous
+rock which are a joy to the heart of the flower-lover.[18]
+
+[Footnote 18: See _The Flora of Carnarvonshire_, by John E. Griffith,
+and _A Flora of the English Lake District_, by J. G. Baker, two books
+which are of great value in showing the localities of mountain plants.]
+
+Again, one is apt to think that on those heights, where the winter is
+long and severe, it is the southern flanks that must be the haunt of the
+flowers; in reality, it is the north-east side that is the more
+favoured, owing to the fact that the hills, in both districts, for the
+most part rise gently from the south or the south-west, in gradual
+slopes that are usually dry and wind-swept, while northward and eastward
+they fall away steeply in broken and water-worn escarpments. It is here,
+among the wet ledges and rock-faces, constantly sprayed from the high
+cliffs above, where springs have their sources, that the right
+conditions of shade and moisture are attained; and here only can the
+Alpines be found in any abundance. The precipices of Cwm Idwal and Cwm
+Glas, in Wales, and in the Lake District the east face of Helvellyn, may
+stand as examples of such rock-gardens.
+
+The course of a climber is usually along the top of the ridge, that of
+the botanist at its base; his paradise is that less frequented region
+which may be called the undercliff, where the "screes" begin to break
+away from the overhanging precipice, and where, in the angle thus
+formed, there is often a little track which winds along the hillside,
+sometimes rising, sometimes falling, but always with the cliff above
+and the scree-slope below. Following this natural guidance he may
+scramble around the base of the rocks, or along their transverse ledges,
+and feast his eyes on the many mountain flowers that are within sight,
+if not within reach.
+
+It is a fine sport, this flower-gazing; not only because all the plants
+are beautiful and many of them rare, but because it demands a certain
+skill to balance oneself on a steep declivity, while looking upward,
+through binoculars, at some attractive clump of purple saxifrage, or
+moss-campion, or thrift, or rose-root, or globe-flower, as the case may
+be.[19] To the veteran rambler especially, this flower-cult is
+congenial; for it supplies--I will not say an excuse for not going to
+the top, but a less severe and exacting diversion, which still takes him
+into the inmost solitudes of the mountain, and keeps him in unfailing
+touch with its character and genius.
+
+[Footnote 19: In Parkinson's _Theatrum Botanicum_ (1640) it is remarked
+of rose-root that it grows "oftentimes in the ruggiest places, and most
+dangerous of them, scarce accessible, and so steepe that they may soon
+tumble downe that doe not very warily looke to their footing."]
+
+I have spoken of Snowdonia in the spring; let us view it now in the
+fulness of June or July, when its flora is at its richest. It is not
+till you have climbed to a height of about two thousand feet that the
+true joys of the mountains begin. At first, perhaps, as you follow the
+course of the stream you will see nothing more than a bunch of white
+scurvy-grass or a spray of golden-rod; but when you reach the region
+where the thin cascade comes sliding down over the moist rocks, and the
+topmost cliffs seem to impend, then you will have your reward, for you
+have entered into the kingdom of the Alpines.
+
+Suppose, for example, that you stand at the foot of the narrow ridge of
+Crib-y-Ddysgl, a great precipice which overhangs the upper chambers of
+Cwm Glas on the northern side of Snowdon, with an escarpment formed of
+huge slabs of rock intersected by wet gullies, narrow niches, and
+transverse terraces of grass. Looking up, to where the Crib towers
+above, you will see a goodly array of plants. Thrift is there, in large
+clumps as handsome as on any sea-cliffs; rose-root, the big
+mountain-stonecrop; cushions of moss-campion, which bears the local name
+of "Snowdon pink"; lady's-mantle, intermixed with the reddening leaves
+of mountain-sorrel; Welsh poppy, not so common a flower in Wales as its
+name would suggest; and at least three kinds of beautiful white
+blossoms--the starry saxifrage, the mossy saxifrage, and the shapely
+little sandwort (_arenaria verna_), as fair as the saxifrages
+themselves, and what higher praise could be given? The flower-lover can
+scarcely hope for greater delight than that which the starry saxifrage
+will yield him. It has been well said that "one who has not seen it
+growing, say, in some rift of the rock exposed by the wearing of the
+mountain torrent, cannot imagine how lovely it is, or how fitly it is
+named. White and starry, and saxifrage--how charming must that which has
+three such names be!"[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: _Wild Flowers of Scotland_, by J. H. Crawford.]
+
+Another lofty rock-face, similar in its flora to that of Snowdon, is the
+precipice at the head of Cwm Idwal, near the point where it is broken by
+the famous chasm of the Devil's Kitchen. Hereabouts is the chief station
+of the _Lloydia_, or spiderwort, a rather rare and pretty Alpine, a
+delicate lily of the high rocks, bearing solitary white flowers veined
+with red, and a few exceedingly narrow leaves that resemble the legs of
+a spider. Unlike most mountain plants, it has a considerable local
+reputation; and during its short flowering season in June one may
+observe small parties of enthusiasts from Bangor or Carnarvon,
+diligently scanning the black cliffs above Llyn Idwal, in the hope of
+spying it. The place where I first saw the _Lloydia_ in blossom was Cwm
+Glas; but I had previously noticed its long thin leaves in two or three
+places around the Devil's Kitchen.
+
+The haunts of the Alpine meadow-rue (_thalictrum alpinum_) are similar
+to those of the spiderwort; and a most elegant little plant it is, its
+gracefully drooping terminal cluster of small yellowish flowers being
+borne on a simple naked stem, whereas its less aristocratic relative,
+the smaller meadow-rue (_t. collinum_), which is much commoner on these
+rocks, is bushier and more branched. I had many disappointments, before
+I rightly apprehended the true Alpine species; once distinguished, it
+cannot again be mistaken.
+
+It was to a chance meeting in Ogwen Cottage, at the foot of Cwm Idwal,
+with Dr. Lloyd Williams, a skilled botanist who had brought a party of
+friends to visit the home of the _Lloydia_, that I owed my introduction
+to another very beautiful inhabitant of those heights, the white
+mountain-avens, known to rock-gardeners as _dryas octopetala_. Happy is
+the flower-gazer who has looked on the galaxy, the "milky way," of those
+fair mountain nymphs--for the plant is in truth an oread rather than a
+dryad--where they shed their lustre from certain favoured ledges in a
+spot which it is safer to leave unspecified. I must have passed close to
+the place many scores of times, in the forty or more years during which
+I had known the mountain; yet never till then did I become aware of the
+treasure that was enshrined in it!
+
+But of all the glories of Cwm Idwal--rarities apart--the greatest, when
+the summer is at its prime, is the array of globe-flowers. This splendid
+buttercup usually haunts the banks of mountain streams, or the sides of
+damp woods, in the West country and the North; its range is given in the
+_Flora of the Lake District_ as not rising above nine hundred feet; but
+in Snowdonia, not content to dwell with its cousins the kingcups and
+spearworts in the upland valleys, it aspires to a far more romantic
+station, and is seen blooming in profusion at twice and almost three
+times that height on the most precipitous rock-ledges.[21] One may gaze
+by the hour, enraptured, and never weary of the sight.
+
+[Footnote 21: In the Cairngorm mountains, the globe-flower ascends to a
+height of 3,000 feet (see Mr. Seton Gordon's _Wanderings of a
+Naturalist_); in the Alps to 8,000.]
+
+I have by no means exhausted the list of notable Snowdonian flowers that
+are native in the two localities of which I have spoken, or in a few
+other spots that are similarly favoured by geological conditions: the
+sea-plantain, the mountain-cudweed, the stone-bramble, the queer little
+whitlow-grass with twisted pods (_draba incana_), its still rarer
+congener the Alpine rock-cress, and the _Saussurea_, or Alpine
+saw-wort--all these, and more, are to be found there by the pilgrim who
+devotedly searches the scriptures of the hills. But of the _Saussurea_
+some mention will have to be made in the next chapter; for it is now
+time to turn from Cambria to Cumbria, from the "cwms" and "cribs" of
+Snowdon to the "coves" and "edges" of Helvellyn.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+COVES OF HELVELLYN
+
+    I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+SO far I have spoken more of the Welsh mountain flowers than of those
+belonging to Lakeland; but the difference between the two districts, in
+regard to their respective floras, is not very great, and with a few
+exceptions the plants that are native on the one range may be looked for
+on the other. The _Lloydia_ is found in Snowdonia only; and Wales can
+boast, not a monopoly, but a greater plenty of the moss-campion and the
+purple saxifrage. On the other hand, the Alpine lady's-mantle and the
+yellow mountain-saxifrage, both abundant in Cumberland, are absent from
+Carnarvonshire; and this is somewhat of a loss, for the common
+lady's-mantle, charming though it is, lacks the beauty of the Alpine,
+and the yellow saxifrages, as they hang from the rocks like a phalanx of
+tiny golden shields--each with bright petals and pale green sepals
+radiating from a central boss--are among the greatest ornaments of the
+fells.
+
+Again, the lovely little bird's-eye primrose is a North-country plant
+which is not found in Wales; against which may be set, perhaps, that gem
+of the damp mosses on certain Welsh streamsides, the ivy-leaved
+bell-flower. More characteristic of Lakeland than of Snowdonia, though
+not peculiar to it, are those two very beautiful flowers, the one a
+child of the swamp, the other of the high pastures, the grass of
+Parnassus, and the mountain-pansy; and to conclude the list, the
+snow-saxifrage and the mountain-avens are about equally rare in both
+countries--the avens, indeed, is confined to one or two stations, where
+fortunately it is little known.
+
+Helvellyn, as a mountain, is very inferior to Snowdon, nor indeed can it
+compete in grandeur with its own Cumbrian neighbours, the Great Gable
+and Scafell; but among visitors to the Lakes it has nevertheless an
+enduring reputation, largely due to the poems in which Scott and
+Wordsworth have sung its praises. Accordingly, during the tourist
+season, the anxious question: "Is that Helvellyn?" may often be
+overheard; and on a fine day all sorts of incongruous persons may be
+seen making their way up the weary slopes that lead from Grasmere to its
+crest. I once observed a gentleman in a top-hat toiling upward in the
+queue; on another occasion I witnessed at the summit a violent quarrel
+between a married couple, the point of dispute (on which they appealed
+to me) being whether their little dog was, or was not, in danger of
+being blown over the cliffs. As the west wind was certainly very strong,
+and Helvellyn had already been associated with the story of a dog's
+fidelity, I ventured to advise a retreat.
+
+On the east side, however, where its "dark brow" overlooks the Red Tarn,
+and throws out two great lateral ridges--on the right, in De Quincey's
+words, "the awful curtain of rock called Striding Edge," and Swirrel
+Edge on the left--Helvellyn is a very fine mountain, and what is more to
+the present purpose, is botanically the most interesting of all the
+Lakeland fells. From Grisedale Tarn to Keppelcove, a distance of full
+three miles, that great escarpment, with the several "coves" that nestle
+beneath it, is the home of many rare Alpine flowers, corresponding in
+that respect with the Welsh rock-faces of Idwal and Cwm Glas; and though
+it does not offer so conspicuous a display, or such keen inducements to
+flower-gazing, a search along its narrow ledges, and under the impending
+crags, home of the hill fox, will seldom disappoint the adventurer.
+
+Some years ago I spent a week of July, in two successive seasons, at
+Patterdale, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the
+mountain flowers, but on both occasions the weather was very stormy and
+made it difficult to be on the fells. At first I searched chiefly under
+Striding Edge and the steep front of Helvellyn, among the rocks that
+lie behind the Red Tarn, and in similar places above Keppelcove Tarn in
+the adjoining valley, hoping with good luck to light on the
+snow-saxifrage. In this I was unsuccessful; but I twice found a plant I
+had not hitherto met with--in appearance a small spineless thistle, with
+a cluster of light-purple scented flowers--which proved to be the Alpine
+saw-wort, or _Saussurea_, and which in later years I saw again on
+Snowdon. A blossom which I picked and kept for several months was so
+little affected by its separation from the parent stem that it continued
+its vital processes in a vase, and passed from flowering to seeding
+without interruption. Like the orpine, it was a veritable "live-long,"
+or as the politicians say, "die-hard."
+
+At Patterdale I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr.
+Robert Nixon, a resident who has had a long and intimate knowledge of
+the local flora; and he very kindly devoted a day to showing me some of
+his flower-haunts on Helvellyn. In the course of this expedition, one of
+the pleasantest in my memory, a number of interesting plants were noted
+by us: among them the mountain-pansy; the cross-leaved bedstraw; the
+vernal sandwort; the Alpine meadow-rue; the moss-campion; the purple
+saxifrage, now past flowering; the mountain willow-herb (_epilobium
+alsinifolium_), not the true Alpine willow-herb, but a native of similar
+places among the higher rills; and the _salix herbacea_, or "least
+willow," the smallest of British trees, which when growing on the bare
+hill-tops is not more than two inches in height, though in the clefts of
+rock at the edge of the main escarpment we found it of much larger size.
+
+The moss-campion (_silene acaulis_) is especially associated with the
+locality of which I am speaking--the neighbourhood of Grisedale
+Tarn--and is mentioned in the "Elegiac Verses," composed by Wordsworth
+"near the mountain track that leads from Grasmere through Grisedale":
+
+    There cleaving to the ground, it lies,
+    With multitude of purple eyes,
+    Spangling a cushion green like moss.
+
+To this the poet added in a note: "This most beautiful plant is scarce
+in England. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was
+singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches in
+diameter. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in
+both of which I have since sought for it in vain." The other place may
+have been the hill above Rydal Mount; for a contributor to the _Flora of
+the Lake District_ states that it was there shown to him by Wordsworth.
+The poet's knowledge of the higher mountains, and of the mountain flora,
+was not great. The moss-campion though local, is much less rare than he
+supposed, and its "cushions" grow to a far larger bulk than that of the
+one described by him. In his _Holidays on High Lands_ (1869), Hugh
+Macmillan, paying tribute to the beauty of this flower, remarks that "a
+sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmorland mountains measured
+five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour." I have seen it
+approaching that size in Wales.
+
+Another plant which I was anxious to see was the Alpine _cerastium_
+(mouse-ear chickweed), said to grow "sparingly" on the crags of Striding
+Edge and in a few other places. I failed to find it; but when Mr. Nixon
+had pointed out to me, in a photograph of the Edge, a particular crag on
+which he had noticed the flower in a previous summer, I determined to
+renew the search. This the weather prevented; but in the following year,
+happening to be in Borrowdale in June, I walked from Keswick to the top
+of Helvellyn, and thence descended to Striding Edge, where, on the very
+rock indicated by Mr. Nixon, I found the object of my journey--not yet
+in flower, for I was somewhat ahead of its season, but authenticated as
+_cerastium alpinum_ by the small oval leaves covered with dense white
+down. I have several times seen, high up on Carnedd Llewelyn, a form of
+_cerastium_ with larger flowers than the common kind; this I think must
+have been what is called _c. alpestre_ in the _Flora of Carnarvonshire_;
+but the true _alpinum_, though frequent in the Scottish highlands, is
+decidedly rare in Wales.
+
+Even when the summer is far spent, there is hope for the flower-lover
+among these mountains, especially if he penetrate into one of those
+deep fissures--more characteristic of the Scafell range than of
+Helvellyn--known locally as "gills": I have in mind the upper portion of
+Grain's Gill, near the summit of the Sty Head Pass, where, on an autumn
+day, one may still see, on either bank of the chasm, a goodly array of
+flowers. Most prevalent, perhaps, are the satiny leaves of the Alpine
+lady's-mantle, which is extraordinarily abundant in this part of the
+Lake District, and forms a thick green carpet on many of the slopes.
+Against this background stand out conspicuously tall spires of
+golden-rod, rich cushions of wild thyme, and clumps of white
+sea-campion, a shore plant which, like thrift, sea-plantain, and
+scurvy-grass, seems almost equally at home on the heights. There, too,
+are the mountain-sorrel, and rose-root; butterworts, with leaves now
+faded to a sickly yellow; tufts of harebell, northern bedstraw and
+hawkweed; stout stalks of angelica; and, best of all, festoons of yellow
+saxifrages, beautiful even in their decay.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+GREAT DAYS
+
+    I hearing get, who had but ears,
+      And sight, who had but eyes before;
+    I moments live, who lived but years.
+
+    THOREAU.
+
+
+IN flower-seeking, as in other sports and sciences, the unexpected is
+always happening; there are rich days and poor days, surprises and
+disappointments; the plant which we hailed as a rarity may prove on
+examination to be but a gay deceiver; and contrariwise, when we think we
+have come home empty-handed, it may turn out that the vasculum contains
+some unrecognized treasure; as when, after what seemed to be a barren
+day on Helvellyn, I found that I had brought back with me the Alpine
+saw-wort.
+
+That in the study of flowers, as in all natural history, we should be
+more attracted by the rare than by the common is inevitable; it is a
+tendency that cannot be escaped or denied, but it may at least be kept
+within bounds, so that familiarity shall not breed the proverbial
+contempt, nor rarity a vulgar and excessive admiration.[22] The quest
+for the rare, provided that it does not make us forget that the common
+is often no less beautiful, or lead to that selfish acquisitiveness
+which is the bane of "collecting," is a foible harmless in itself and
+even in some cases useful, as inciting us to further activities.
+
+[Footnote 22: "This [herb] was choice, because of prime use in medicine;
+and that, more choice, for yielding a rare flavour to pottage; and a
+third choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme
+scarcity."--Scott's _Quentin Durward_.]
+
+The sulphur-wort, or "sea hog's-fennel," for instance, is not especially
+attractive--a big coarse plant, five feet in stature, with a solid stem,
+uncouth masses of grass-like leaves, and large umbels of yellow
+flowers--yet I have a gratifying recollection of a visit which I once
+paid to its haunts on the Essex salt marshes near Hamford Water. Again,
+the twisted-podded whitlow-grass is a rather shabby-looking little
+crucifer; but the day when I found it under the crags of Snowdon in Cwm
+Glas stands out distinguished and unforgotten. It is natural that we
+should observe more closely what there are fewer opportunities of
+observing.
+
+Let me speak first of the barren days. An old friend of mine who is of
+an optimistic temperament once assured me for my comfort, that the
+flower-seeker must not feel discouraged if he fail in his pursuit; since
+it is not from mere success, but from the effort itself, that benefit is
+derived. The text should run, not "Seek, and ye shall find," but,
+"Seek, and ye shall not _need_ to find." This may be a true doctrine,
+but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time,
+to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that
+there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long
+some of the "wanted" plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade
+discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of
+star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet
+set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or "clustered" saxifrage. In
+like manner among the innumerable flowers of the chalk fields, in the
+South, that elusive little annual, the mouse-tail, has hitherto remained
+undetected. So, too, with many other rarities: the list of the found may
+increase year by year, but that of the _un_found is never exhausted.
+
+It is well that it is so, and that satiety cannot chill the ardour of
+the flower-lover, but like Ulysses, "always roaming with a hungry
+heart," he has ever before him an object for his pursuit. "Wretched is
+he," says Rousseau, "who has nothing left to wish for." Nor is the
+reward a merely figurative one, such as that of the husbandmen in the
+fable, who, after digging the ground in search of a buried treasure,
+were otherwise recompensed; for the lean days are happily interspersed
+with the fat days, and to the botanist there is surely no joy on earth
+like that of discovering a flower that is new to him; it is a thrilling
+event which compensates tenfold for all the failures of the past.
+
+Very remarkable, too, is the freakishness of fortune, which often, while
+denying what you crave, will toss you something quite different and
+unlooked for: I remember how when searching vainly for the spider orchis
+at the foot of the Downs in Kent, I stumbled on an abundance of the
+"green man." Or perhaps, just at the moment when you are relinquishing
+the quest as hopeless, and have put it wholly from your mind, you will
+be startled to see the very flower that you sought.
+
+    Burningly it came on me all at once!
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
+    After a life spent training for the sight!
+
+As Thoreau expressed it: "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one
+day you come full upon, all the family at dinner."
+
+But the great days! I have sometimes fancied that in those enterprises
+which are to mark the finding of a new flower, one has an inner
+anticipation, a sense of hopefulness and quiet satisfaction that on
+ordinary occasions is lacking. But this assurance must be an instinctive
+one; it is useless to affect a confidence that does not naturally arise;
+for though perseverance is essential, any presumptuous attempt to
+forestall a favourable issue will only lead to discomfiture. Then at
+last, when the goal is reached, comes the devotee's reward--the
+knowledge that is won only by attainment, the ecstasy, the moments that
+are better than years. In this, as in much else, the search for flowers
+is symbolic of the search for truth.
+
+Nothing, as they say, succeeds like success; and there are times, in
+this absorbing pursuit, when one piece of good fortune is linked closely
+with another. I shall not easily forget that day on Snowdon, when, after
+meeting for the first time with the Alpine meadow-rue, I almost
+immediately saw my first spiderwort some ten feet above me on the rocky
+cliff, and reached it by building a cairn of stones against the foot of
+the precipice to serve me as a ladder.
+
+Among the great days that have fallen to my lot while following the call
+of the wildflower, one other shall be mentioned--a fair September
+afternoon when I had wandered for miles about the wide pastures that
+border the Trent, in what seemed to be a fruitless search for the
+meadow-saffron. Already it was time to turn on my homeward journey, when
+I struck into a field from which hay had been carried in the summer; and
+there, scattered around in large clusters of a score or more together,
+some lilac, some white, all with a satiny translucence in the warm
+sunshine which gave them an extraordinary and fairy-like charm, were
+hundreds of the leafless "autumn crocuses," as they are called, though
+in fact the flower is more lovely and ethereal than any crocus of the
+garden. Not the day only, but the place itself was glorified by them;
+and now of all those spacious but rather desolate Nottinghamshire
+river-meadows, I remember only that one spot:
+
+    I crossed a moor, with a name of its own,
+      And a certain use in the world, no doubt;
+    Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone,
+      'Mid the blank miles round about.
+
+Nor are all the great days necessarily of that strenuous sort where
+success can only be achieved by effort; for there are some days which
+may also be called great, or at least memorable, when one attains by
+free gift of fortune to what might long have been searched for in vain.
+I refer to those happy occasions when a friend says: "Look here! I'd
+like to show you that field where the elecampane grows," or, it may be,
+the habitat (the only one in England) of the spring snowflake; or the
+place on Wansfell Pike where the mountain-twayblade lies hidden beneath
+the heather. Such things have befallen me now and then; nor am I likely
+to forget the day when Bertram Lloyd took me to the haunt of the
+creeping toadflax in Oxfordshire; or when, with Sydney Olivier for
+guide, I emerged from the aisles of Wychwood Forest on to some rough
+grassy ground, where in company with meadow crane's-bill, clustered
+bell-flower, and woolly-headed thistle, the blue _salvia pratensis_ was
+flourishing in glorious abundance.
+
+For recollection plays a large part in the flower-lover's enjoyment.
+Wordsworth and his daffodils are but a trite quotation; yet many hearts
+besides Wordsworth's have filled with pleasure at the memory of a brave
+array of flowers, or even of a single gallant plant seen in some wild
+locality by mountain, meadow, or shore. The great days were not born to
+be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE LAST ROSE
+
+    And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
+
+
+THE great days were not born to be forgotten. It is well that memory
+should come to the aid of the flower-lover; for none is more deserving
+of such comfort than he, keeping constant watch as he does over the
+transitoriness of the seasons, and having prescience of the summer's
+departure while summer is still at its height.
+
+    Sometimes a late autumnal thought
+    Has crossed my mind in green July.
+
+It is in the prime of the year that such intimations of mortality are
+keenest; when the "fall" itself has arrived, there is less of regret
+than of resignation. I do not know where the tranquil grief for parted
+loveliness is so tenderly expressed as in a fragmentary poem of
+Shelley's, "The Zucca," which, though little known by the majority of
+readers, contains some of the most poignant, most Shelleyan verses ever
+written. The poet relates how when the Italian summer was dead, and
+autumn was in turn expiring, he went forth in grief for the decay of
+that ideal beauty--"dim object of my soul's idolatry"--of which he,
+above all men, was the worshipper, and in this mood of sadness found the
+withered gourd which was the subject of his song.
+
+    And thus I went lamenting, when I saw
+      A plant upon the river's margin lie,
+    Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law.
+      And in despair had cast him down to die.
+
+There is a fitness in such imagery; for flowers seem to serve naturally
+as emblems of human emotions. Who has not felt the pathos of a faded
+blossom kept as a memorial of the past? Many years ago I was given a
+beautifully bound copy of Moxon's edition of _Shelley_; and when I
+noticed that opposite that loveliest of poems, "Epipsychidion," were a
+few pink petals interleaved, I was sure that their presence at such a
+page was not merely accidental; and it has since been a whim of mine
+that those tokens of some bygone incident in the life of a former owner
+of the book should not be displaced.
+
+There are vicissitudes in human lives with which flowers become
+associated in our thoughts. I recall a calm autumn day spent in company
+with a friend upon the Surrey Downs, when the marjoram and other
+fragrant flowers of the chalk were still as beautiful as in summer, but
+the sadness of a near departure from that familiar district lay heavy
+on my mind; and that day proved indeed to be the end of many happy
+years, for long afterwards, when I returned to those hills, all was
+changed for _me_, though Nature was kindly as before. Thus a date, not
+greatly heeded at the time, may be found to have marked one of life's
+turning-points, and the flowers connected with it may hold a peculiar
+significance in memory.
+
+It is a sad moment for a flower-lover when he sees before him "the last
+rose of summer" ("rose" is a term which may here be used in a general
+sense for any sweet and pleasing flower), and realizes that he is now
+face to face with the season's euthanasia, "that last brief resurrection
+of summer in its most brilliant memorials, a resurrection that has no
+root in the past, nor steady hold upon the future, like the lambent and
+fitful gleams from an expiring lamp." Yet so gradual is this change, and
+the resurrection of which De Quincey speaks so entrancing, that one is
+comforted even while he grieves.
+
+For example, there are few sights more cheering on a late September day
+than to find by some bare tidal river a colony of the marsh-mallow. The
+most admired member of the family is usually the muskmallow; and
+certainly it is a very pretty flower, with its bright foliage and the
+pink satiny sheen of its corolla; but far more charming, though less
+showy in appearance, is its modest sister of the salt marshes, whose
+leaves, overspread with hoary down, are soft as softest velvet, and her
+petals steeped in as tender and delicate a tint of palest rose-colour
+as could be imagined in dreams. There is something especially gracious
+about this _althæa_, or "healer"; and her virtues are not more soothing
+to body than to mind.
+
+It was from the Sussex shingles that I started, and from the same shore
+my concluding picture shall be drawn--a quaint sea-posy that I picked
+there on an October afternoon, not so romantic, certainly, as one of
+violets or forget-me-nots, but in that sere season not less heartening
+than any nosegay of the spring. It held but three flowers, samphire,
+sea-rocket, and sea-heath. The samphire, at all times a singular and
+attractive herb, was now in fruit, and had faded to a wan yellow; the
+rocket was still in flower, its lilac blossoms crowning the solid
+glaucous stalk, and its thick fleshy leaves rivalling the texture of
+seaweed; the small sea-heath, with wiry reddish stems and dark-green
+foliage, lent itself by a natural contrast for twining around its
+bulkier companions. Thus grouped they stood for weeks in a vase on my
+mantel, until the time for wildflowers was overpast, and the "black and
+tan" days of winter were already let loose on the earth. And even when
+the year is actually at its lowest, the sunnier times can be revived and
+re-enacted in thought; for memory is potent as that wizard in Morris's
+poem, who in the depth of a northern Christmastide could so wondrously
+transform the season,
+
+    That through one window men beheld the spring,
+    And through another saw the summer glow,
+    And through a third the fruited vines a-row;
+    While still unheard, but in its wonted way,
+    Piped the drear wind of that December day.
+
+Such flowery scenes has the writing of this little book brought back to
+me, and has robbed at least one winter of many cheerless hours.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+    Alpine bartsia, 154;
+      forget-me-not, 155;
+      lady's-mantle, 177;
+      meadow-rue, 153, 168, 174, 182;
+      mouse-ear, 176;
+      penny-cress, 107, 108;
+      saw-wort, 170, 174, 178
+    Amberley Wild Brooks, 35, 36
+    Arnside, 124-7
+    Arundel Park, 35, 142
+    Avens, mountain, 155, 169, 172;
+      water, 107, 132, 156
+
+    Baneberry, 126, 127, 129
+    Bellflower, ivy-leaved, 48, 148, 149, 172
+    Bladderwort, 34, 146, 147
+    Borage, 124
+    Butterwort, 87, 148, 177
+
+    Carpenter, Edward, 15, 45, 93, 100
+    Castleton, 108
+    Chiltern Hills, 16, 90, 94, 95
+    Cinquefoil, marsh, 147, 148, 156;
+      shrubby, 152, 153;
+      vernal, 105
+    Cloudberry, 110
+    Crabbe (quoted), 30, 78
+    Cranberry, 149
+    Crow-garlic, 92
+    Cuckmere Haven, 26
+    Cwm Glas, 165, 167-70
+    Cwm Idwal, 168-70
+
+    Dwale, 140
+
+    Farrer, Reginald, 66, 105, 129
+    Fritillary, 88, 89
+    Fungi, 80
+
+    Gentian, 72; marsh, 144, 145;
+       vernal, 66, 154, 155
+    Gerarde, John, 49, 87, 88, 91, 98, 110, 124, 130, 134, 140, 142
+    Globe-flower, 147, 169, 170
+    Gorse, 51, 52
+
+    Hare's-ear, "common," 46, 56, 87, 91;
+       slender, 26, 27
+    Hellebore, 126, 142
+    Hemlock, 143
+    Henbane, 140, 141
+    Hound's-tongue, 55, 71
+    Hudson, W. H., 12, 53 (note), 57, 88, 89
+    Hutchinsia, 47, 106, 123
+
+    Jefferies, Richard, 40, 81
+    Johns, C. A., 38, 61, 125
+    Jupp, W. J., 15
+
+    Kinderscout, 109-12
+
+    Lady's-mantle, 167, 171;
+      Alpine, 177
+    Letchworth, 92, 95, 96
+    Lewes brooks, 30-4
+    Lily of the valley, 41, 61, 125
+    Lloyd, E. Bertram, 16, 110, 111, 119, 183
+
+    Macmillan, Hugh, 162 (note), 175, 176
+    Marjoram, 69, 76, 103, 180
+    Marsh-cinquefoil, 147, 148
+    Marsh-mallow, 187
+    Meadow-rue, Alpine, 153, 168, 174, 182;
+      lesser, 108
+    Meadow-sage, 64, 183
+    Monk's-hood, 94, 142
+    Morris, William, 42 (note), 78, 188, 189
+    Moschatel, 87, 88
+    Moss-campion, 167, 171, 175, 176
+    Mouse-ear, Alpine, 176
+
+    Nightshade, deadly, 72, 74, 140
+    Nixon, Robert, 174, 176
+    Norton Common, 95, 96
+    Nottingham catch-fly, 105, 123
+
+    Olivier, Sir Sydney, 183
+    Orchis, 53-6, 70, 71, 85, 86, 126, 148;
+      bee, 53;
+      man, 74;
+      musk, 55;
+      spider, 53-5
+    Orme's Head, 121, 124
+
+    Pagham Harbour, 27
+    Pansy, mountain, 108, 152, 155, 172, 174
+    Perfoliates, 86, 87, 108
+    Pevensey, shingles, 25;
+      levels, 30, 34
+    Pilgrim's Way, 73
+    Pink, proliferous, 27;
+      Deptford, 79;
+      maiden, 123
+    Pratt, Anne, 11, 38, 60, 145, 150
+    Primrose, 64, 65, 131;
+      bird's-eye, 131, 152, 172;
+      water "violet," 31, 101, 102
+
+    Rampion, 53, 56, 74
+    Rock-rose, 53, 56, 72, 76, 103, 123
+
+    Saffron, meadow, 182
+    St. John's-worts, 11, 39, 79, 99, 148
+    Salmon, C. E., 17
+    Samphire, 24, 122, 188
+    Sandwort, vernal, 106, 108, 130, 167
+    Saw-wort, Alpine, 170, 174, 178
+    Saxifrages, 15, 22, 106, 167;
+      mossy, 106, 130, 167;
+      purple, 41, 130, 159-62;
+      snow, 155, 174, 180;
+      starry, 155, 167, 168, 180;
+      yellow, 156, 171, 177
+    Sheep's scabious, 82
+    Shelley (quoted), 25, 36, 139-41, 185, 186
+    Shoreham shingles, 22-4
+    Snapdragon, 84, 86
+    Snowdon, 158, 164-70
+    Spiderwort, 168, 171, 182
+    Squinancy-wort, 45, 72
+    Stitchwort, 20, 37
+    Sweet Cicely, 104
+
+    Teesdale, Upper, 66, 151-7
+    Thistle, "melancholy," 156, 157
+    Thoreau, H. D., 12, 71, 144, 181;
+       his _Journal_, 133-8
+    Thorn-apple, 141
+    Trefoils, 22, 23, 39, 40;
+      starry-headed, 23, 99
+
+    Vaughan, Canon J., 12 (note), 98
+    Vetches, 22, 23, 72
+    Viper's bugloss, 22, 71
+    Virgil, 69, 80
+
+    Water-soldier, 94, 98
+    White, Gilbert, 51, 77, 98
+    Wordsworth, 11, 42, 175, 184
+    Wye valley, 106, 107
+
+    Yellow-wort, 72, 87
+
+_Printed in Great Britain by_
+
+UNWIN BROTHERS THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt.
+    </title>
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+    margin-left: 10%;
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Call of the Wildflower
+
+Author: Henry S. Salt
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2010 [EBook #34380]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreaders at fadedpage.net
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    <h1><br /><br />THE CALL OF THE<br />
+    WILDFLOWER<br /><br /></h1>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+   <h4> <i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h4>
+
+    <h4>SEVENTY YEARS AMONG SAVAGES. 12s. 6d.</h4>
+
+    <p>THE FLOGGING CRAZE. A Statement of the Case
+    against Corporal Punishment. With Foreword by
+    Sir George Greenwood. 3s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">George Allen &amp; Unwin Ltd.</span><br /></p>
+
+
+    <p>ON CAMBRIAN AND CUMBRIAN HILLS.p
+    Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scafell. Revised
+    Edition. 5s. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">C. W. Daniel Ltd.</span></p>
+
+    <p>ANIMALS' RIGHTS: Considered in relation to Social
+    Progress. Revised Edition. 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+    <p>DE QUINCEY. Great Writers Series. 1s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">G. Bell &amp; Sons Ltd.</span></p>
+
+    THE LIFE OF HENRY D. THOREAU. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Walter Scott Publishing Co.</span></p>
+
+    <p>RICHARD JEFFERIES: His Life and his Ideals. 1s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Jonathan Cape.</span></p>
+
+    <p>THE LIFE OF JAMES THOMSON, B.V. 2s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+    <p>TREASURES OF LUCRETIUS. Selected Passages
+    translated into English Verse. 1s. 6d. net.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Watts &amp; Co.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 339px;">
+<img src="images/wild-fpc.jpg" width="339" height="450" alt="THE HAUNT OF THE SPIDERWORT" title="" />
+<span class="caption"><i>G. P. Abraham &amp; Sons.</i>]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [<i>Photo. Keswick</i><br />THE HAUNT OF THE SPIDERWORT<br />The Devil's Kitchen, Carnarvonshire</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+    <h2>THE CALL OF THE<br />
+    WILDFLOWER</h2>
+
+    <h4>BY</h4>
+    <h3>HENRY S. SALT</h3>
+
+    <div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/wild-emb.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="" title="emblem" />
+</div>
+
+    <p class="center">LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN &amp; UNWIN LTD<br />
+    RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.<br />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+
+
+
+    <i>First published in 1922</i><br />
+
+    (<i>All rights reserved</i>)<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h4>
+TO<br />
+<br />
+MY FRIENDS<br />
+<br />
+W. J. JUPP and E. BERTRAM LLOYD</h4>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>I am indebted to the courtesy of the editors of the <i>Daily News</i>, <i>Pall
+Mall Gazette</i>, <i>Liverpool Daily Post</i>, and <i>Sussex Daily News</i>, for
+permission to reprint in this book the substance of articles that first
+appeared in their columns.</p>
+
+<p>My obligation to Jack London, in regard to the choice of a title, will
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>be apparent.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left"> THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_9'>9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left"> ON SUSSEX SHINGLES</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_21'>21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left"> BY DITCH AND DIKE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left"> LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_37'>37</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left"> BOTANESQUE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left"> THE OPEN DOWNLAND</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_50'>50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left"> PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_58'>58</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left"> PICKING AND STEALING</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_63'>63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left"> ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left"> A SANDY COMMON</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left"> QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left"> HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_90'>90</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"> THE SOWER OF TARES</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left"> DALES OF DERBYSHIRE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left"> NO THOROUGHFARE!</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_113'>113</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left"> LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_121'>121</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left"> ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_128'>128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left"> A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_133'>133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left"> FELONS AND OUTLAWS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_139'>139</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left"> SOME MARSH-DWELLERS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_144'>144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left"> A NORTHERN MOOR</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXII.</td><td align="left"> APRIL IN SNOWDONIA</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_158'>158</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIII.</td><td align="left"> FLOWER-GAZING <i>IN EXCELSIS</i></td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIV.</td><td align="left"> COVES OF HELVELLYN</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_171'>171</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXV.</td><td align="left"> GREAT DAYS</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_178'>178</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVI.</td><td align="left"> THE LAST ROSE</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_185'>185</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">INDEX</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td></tr>
+
+
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="The_Call_of_the_Wildflower" id="The_Call_of_the_Wildflower"></a>The Call of the Wildflower</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<h3>THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Tantus amor florum.</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">Virgil.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> "call of the wild," where the love of flowers is concerned, has an
+attraction which is not the less powerful because it is difficult to
+explain. The charm of the garden may be strong, but it is not so strong
+as that which draws us to seek for wildflowers in their native haunts,
+whether of shore or water-meadow, field or wood, moorland or mountain. A
+garden is but a "zoo" (with the cruelty omitted); and just as the true
+natural history is that which sends us to study animals in the wilds,
+not to coop them in cages, so the true botany must bring man to the
+flower, not the flower to man.</p>
+
+<p>That the lovers of wildflowers&mdash;those, at least, who can give active
+expression to their love&mdash;are not a numerous folk, is perhaps not
+surprising; for even a moderate knowledge of the subject demands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> such
+favourable conditions as free access to nature, with opportunities for
+observation beyond what most persons command; but what they lack in
+numbers they make up in zeal, and to none is the approach of spring more
+welcome than to those who are then on the watch for the reappearance of
+floral friends.</p>
+
+<p>For it is as friends, not garden captives or herbarium specimens, that
+the flower-lover desires to be acquainted with flowers. It is not their
+uses that attract him; <i>that</i> is the business of the herbalist. Nor is
+it their structure and analysis; the botanist will see to that. What he
+craves is a knowledge of the loveliness, the actual life and character
+of plants in their relation to man&mdash;what may be called the spiritual
+aspect of flowers&mdash;and this is seen and felt much more closely when they
+are sought in their free wild state than when they are cultivated on
+rockery or in parterre.</p>
+
+<p>The reality of this love of wildflowers is evident, but its cause and
+meaning are less easy to discern. Is it only part of a modern "return to
+nature," or a sign of some latent sympathy between plant and man? We do
+not know; but we know that our interest in flowers is no longer
+utilitarian, as in the herbalism of a bygone time, or decorative and
+æsthetic, as in the immemorial use of the garland on festive occasions,
+and in the association of the wine-cup with the rose. The "great
+affection" that Chaucer felt for the daisy marked a new era;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> and later
+poets have carried the sentiment still further, till it reached a climax
+in the faith that Wordsworth avowed:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One impulse from a vernal wood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">May teach you more of man,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of moral evil and of good,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Than all the sages can.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Here is a new herbalism&mdash;of the heart. We smile nowadays at the
+credulity of the old physicians, who rated so highly the virtues of
+certain plants as to assert, for example, that comfrey&mdash;the "great
+consound," as they called it&mdash;had actual power to unite and solidify a
+broken bone. But how if there be flowers that can in very truth make
+whole a broken spirit? Even in the Middle Ages it was recognized that
+mental benefit was to be gained from this source, as when betony was
+extolled for its value in driving away despair, and when <i>fuga dæmonum</i>
+was the name given to St. John's-wort, that golden-petaled amulet which,
+when hung over a doorway, could put all evil spirits to flight. That,
+like many another flower, it can put "the blues" to flight, is a fact
+which no modern flower-lover will doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But what may be called the anthropocentric view of wildflowers is now
+happily becoming obsolete. "Their beauty was given them for our
+delight," wrote Anne Pratt in one of the pleasantest of her books:<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+"God sent them to teach us lessons<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of Himself." It would somewhat spoil
+our joy in the beauty of wildflowers if we thought they had been "sent,"
+like potted plants from a nursery, for any purpose whatsoever; for it is
+their very naturalness, their independence of man, that charms us, and
+our regard for them is less the prosaic satisfaction of an owner in his
+property, than the love of a friend, or even the worship of a devotee:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The devotion to something afar</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From the sphere of our sorrow.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p>This, I think, is the true gospel of the love of flowers, though as yet
+it has found but little expression in the literature of the subject.
+"Flowers as flowers," was Thoreau's demand, when he lamented in his
+journal that there was no book which treated of them in that light, no
+real "biography" of plants. The same want is felt by the English reader
+to-day: there is no writer who has done for the wildflower what Mr. W.
+H. Hudson has done for the bird.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Indeed, the books mostly fail, not only to portray the life of the
+plant, but even to give an intelligible account of its habitat and
+appearance; for very few writers, however sound their technical
+knowledge, possess the gift of lucid description&mdash;a gift which depends,
+in its turn, upon that sympathy with other minds which enables an author
+to see precisely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> what instruction is needed. Thus it often happens
+that, unless personal help is available, it is a matter of great
+difficulty for a beginner to learn the haunts of flowers, or to
+distinguish them when found; for when he refers to the books he finds
+much talk about inessential things, and little that goes directly to the
+point.</p>
+
+<p>One might have thought that a new and strange flower would attract the
+eye more readily than a known one, but it is not so; the old is detected
+much more easily than the new. "Out of sight, out of mind," says the
+proverb; and conversely that which is not yet in mind will long tarry
+out of sight. But when once a new flower, even a rare one, has been
+discovered, it is curious how often it will soon be noticed afresh in
+another place: this, I think, must be the experience of all who have
+made systematic search for flowers, and it explains why the novice will
+frequently see but little where the expert will see much.</p>
+
+<p>Not until the various initial obstacles have been overcome can one
+appreciate the true "call of the wild," the full pleasures of the chase.
+When we have learnt not only what plants are to be looked for, but those
+two essential conditions, the <i>when</i> and the <i>where</i>; the rule of season
+and of soil; the flowers that bloom in spring, in summer, or in autumn;
+the flowers that grow by shore, meadow, bog, river, or mountain; on
+chalk, limestone, sand, or clay&mdash;then the quest becomes more effective,
+and each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> successive season will add materially to our widening circle
+of acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, we may begin to discard that rather vapid class of
+literature, the popular flower-book, which too often deals sentimentally
+in vague descriptions of plants, diversified with bad illustrations, and
+with edifying remarks about the goodness of the Creator, and may find a
+new and more rational interest in the published <i>Floras</i> of such
+counties or districts as have yet received that distinction. For dry
+though it is in form, a <i>Flora</i>, with its classified list of plants, and
+its notes collected from many sources, past and present, as to their
+"stations" in the county, becomes an almost romantic book of adventure,
+when the student can supply the details from his own knowledge, and so
+read with illumination "between the lines." Here, let us suppose it to
+be said, is a locality where grows some rare and beautiful flower, one
+of the prizes of the chase. What hopes and aspirations such an assurance
+may arouse! What encouragement to future enterprise! What regrets, it
+may be, for some almost forgotten omission in the past, which left that
+very neighbourhood unsearched! It is possible that a cold,
+matter-of-fact entry in a local <i>Flora</i> will thus throw a sudden light
+on some bygone expedition, and show us that if we had but taken a
+slightly different direction in our walk&mdash;but it is vain to lament what
+is irreparable!</p>
+
+<p>Of such musings upon the might-have-been I can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> myself speak with
+feeling, for I was not so fortunate in my youth as to be initiated into
+the knowledge of flowers: it was not till much later in life, as I
+wandered among the Welsh and English mountains, that the scales fell
+from my eyes, and looking on the beauty of the saxifrages I realized
+what glories I had missed. Thus I was compelled to put myself to school,
+so to speak, and to make a study of wildflowers with the aid of such
+books as were available, a process which, like a botanical Jude the
+Obscure, I found by no means easy. The self-educated man, we know, is
+apt to be perverse and opinionated; so I trust my readers will make due
+allowance if they notice such faults in this book. I can truly plead, as
+the illiterate do, that "I'm no scholar, more's the pity." But it was my
+friends and acquaintances&mdash;those, at least, who had some botanical
+knowledge&mdash;who were the chief sufferers during this period of inquiry;
+and, looking back, I often marvel at the patience with which they
+endured the problems with which I confronted them. I remember waylaying
+my friend, W. J. Jupp, a very faithful flower-lover, with some mutilated
+and unrecognizable labiate plant which I thought might be calamint, and
+how tactfully he suggested that my conjecture was "near enough." On
+another occasion it was Edward Carpenter, the Sage of Millthorpe, or
+Wild Sage, as some botanical friend once irreverently described him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+who volunteered to assist me, by means of a scientific book which shows,
+by an unerring process, how to eliminate the wrong flowers, until at the
+end you are left with the right one duly named. All through the list we
+went; but there must have been a slip somewhere; for in the conclusion
+one thing alone was clear&mdash;that whatever my plant might be, it was not
+that which the scientific book indicated. Of all my friends and helpers,
+Bertram Lloyd, whose acquaintance with wildflowers is unusually large,
+and to whom, in all that pertains to natural history, I am as the "gray
+barbarian" (<i>vide</i> Tennyson) to "the Christian child," was the most
+constant and long-suffering: he solved many of my enigmas, and
+introduced me to some of his choicest flower-haunts among the Chiltern
+Hills. In the course of my researches I was sometimes referred for
+guidance to persons who were known in their respective home-circles as
+"the botanists of the family," a title which I found was not quite
+equivalent to that of "the complete botanist." There was one "botanist
+of the family" who was visibly embarrassed when I asked her the name of
+a plant that is common on the chalk hills, but is so carelessly
+described in the books as to be easily confused with other kindred
+species. She gazed at it long, with a troubled eye, and then, as if
+feeling that her domestic reputation must at all hazards be upheld,
+replied firmly: "Hemp-nettle." Hemp-nettle it was not; it was wild
+basil; but years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> after, when I began to have similar questions put to
+myself, I realized how disconcerting it is to be thus suddenly
+interrogated. It made me understand why Cabinet Ministers so frequently
+insist that they must have "notice of that Question." With one complete
+botanist, however, I was privileged to become acquainted, Mr. C. E.
+Salmon, whose special diocese, so to speak, is the county of Surrey, but
+whose intimate knowledge of wildflowers extends to many counties and
+coasts. Not a few favours did I receive from him, in certifying for me
+some of the more puzzling plants; and very good-naturedly he bore the
+disappointment when, on his asking me to send him, for his <i>Flora of
+Surrey</i>, a list of the rarer flowers in the neighbourhood where I was
+living, I included among them the small bur-parsley (<i>caucalis
+daucoides</i>), a vanished native, a prodigal son of the county, whose
+return would have been a matter for gladness. But alas, my plant was not
+a <i>caucalis</i> at all, but a <i>torilis</i>, a squat weed of the cornfields,
+which by its superficial resemblance to its rare cousin had grossly
+imposed upon my ignorance. It is when he has acquired some familiarity
+with the ordinary British plants that a flower-lover, thus educated late
+in life, finds his thoughts turning to the vanished opportunities of the
+past. I used to speculate regretfully on what I had missed in my early
+wanderings in wild places; as in the Isle of Skye, where I picked up the
+eagle's feather,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> but overlooked the mountain flower; or on Ben Lawers,
+a summit rich in rare Alpines to which I then was stone-blind; or in a
+score of other localities which I can scarcely hope to revisit. But
+time, which heals all things, brought me a sort of compensation for
+these delinquencies; for with a fuller knowledge of plants I could to
+some extent reconstruct in imagination the sights that were formerly
+unseen, and with the eye of faith admire the Alpine forget-me-not on the
+ridges of Ben Lawers, or the yellow butterwort in the marshes of Skye.
+Nor was it always in imagination only; for sometimes a friend would send
+me a rare flower from some distant spot; and then there was pleasure
+indeed in the opening of the parcel and in anticipating what it might
+contain&mdash;the pasque-flower perhaps, or the wild tulip, or the Adonis, or
+the golden samphire, or some other of the many local treasures that make
+glad the flower-lover's heart. The exhibitions of wildflowers that are
+now held in the public libraries of not a few towns are extremely
+useful, and often awake a love of nature in minds where it has hitherto
+been but dormant. A queer remark was once made to me by a visitor at the
+Brighton show. "This is a good institution," he said. "It saves you from
+tramping for the flowers yourself." I had not regarded the exhibition in
+that light; on the contrary, it stimulates many persons to a pursuit
+which is likely to fascinate them more and more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For no tramps can be pleasanter than those in quest of wildflowers;
+especially if one has a fellow-enthusiast for companion: failing that,
+it is wiser to go alone; for when a flower-lover tramps with someone who
+has no interest in the pursuit, the result is likely to be
+discomfiting&mdash;he must either forgo his own haltings and deviations, with
+the probability that he will miss something valuable, or he must feel
+that he is delaying his friend. In a company, I always pray that their
+number may be uneven, and that it may not be necessary to march stolidly
+in pairs, where "one to one is cursedly confined," as Dryden said of
+matrimony; or worst of all, where one's yoke-fellow may insist, as
+sometimes happens, on walking "in step," and be forever shuffling his
+feet as if obeying the commands of some invisible drill-sergeant. It is
+not with the feet that we should seek harmony, but with the heart. My
+intention in this book is to speak of the more noteworthy flowers of a
+few distinctive localities that are known to me, starting from the coast
+of Sussex, and ascending to the high mountains of Wales and the
+north-west: I propose also to intersperse the descriptive chapters, here
+and there with discussions of such special topics as may incidentally
+arise. And here, at the outset, I was tempted to say a few words about
+my own favourite flowers&mdash;not such universally admired beauties as the
+primrose, violet, daffodil, hyacinth, forget-me-not, and the others,
+whose names will readily suggest themselves;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> for, lovely as they are,
+it would be superfluous to add to their praises; but rather of some less
+famous plants, the saints and anchorites of the floral world, the
+flower-lover's flowers&mdash;not the popular, but the best-beloved. On second
+thoughts, however, I will leave these choicest ones, with a single
+exception, to be mentioned in their due place and surroundings, and will
+here name but one of them, a flower which is among the first, not only
+in the order of merit, but in the order of the seasons.</p>
+
+<p>The greater stitchwort, as writers tell us, is one of "the most
+ornamental of our early flowers"; but surely it is something more than
+that. The radiance of those white stars that stud the hedge-banks and
+road-sides in April and May, is dearer to some of us than many of the
+more favoured blossoms that poets have sung of. The dull English name
+quite fails to do justice to the almost ethereal lustre of the flower:
+the Latin <i>stellaria</i> is truer and more expressive. The reappearance of
+the stitchwort, like that of the orange-tip butterfly, is one of the
+keenest joys of spring; and one of our keenest regrets in spring is that
+the stitchwort's flowering-season is so short.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>ON SUSSEX SHINGLES</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Salt and splendid from the circling brine.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Swinburne.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Where</span> should a flower-lover begin his story if not from the sea shore?
+Earth has been poetically described as "daughter of ocean"; and the
+proximity of the sea has a most genial and stimulating effect upon its
+grandchildren the flowers, not those only that are peculiar to the
+beach, but also the inland kinds. There is no "dead sea" lack of
+vegetation on our coasts, but a marked increase both in the luxuriance
+of plants and in their beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Sussex is rich in "shingles"&mdash;flat expanses of loose pebbles formerly
+thrown up by the waves, and now lying well above high-water mark, or
+even stretching landward for some distance. One might have expected
+these stony tracts to be barren in the extreme; in fact they are the
+nursery-ground of a number of interesting flowers, including some very
+rare ones; and in certain places, where the stones are intersected by
+banks of turf, the eye is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> surprised by a veritable garden in the
+wilderness. Let us imagine ourselves on one of these shingle-beds in the
+early summer, when the show of flowers is at its brightest: and first at
+Shoreham&mdash;"Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years," as Swinburne
+described it.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the Shoreham beach, which until less than twenty years ago was in
+a natural state, has been so overbuilt with ship-works and bungalows
+that it has become little else than a suburb of Brighton; yet even now
+the remaining strip of shingle, stretching for half a mile between sea
+and harbour, is the home of some delightful plants. In the more favoured
+spots the gay mantle thrown over the stony strand is visible at the
+first glance in a wonderful blending of colours&mdash;the gold of horned
+poppy, stonecrop, melilot, and kidney vetch; the white of sea-campion;
+the delicate pink of thrift; and the fiery reds and blues of the
+gorgeous viper's bugloss&mdash;and when a nearer scrutiny is made, a number
+of minute plants will be found growing in close company along the grassy
+ridges. The most attractive of these are the graceful little spring
+vetch (<i>vicia lathyroides</i>), the rue-leaved saxifrage, and that tiny
+turquoise gem which is apt to escape notice, the dwarf forget-me-not&mdash;a
+trio of the daintiest blossoms, red, white, and blue, that eyes could
+desire to behold.</p>
+
+<p>Shoreham has long been famous for its clovers; and some are still in
+great force there, especially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the rigid trefoil (<i>trifolium scabrum</i>),
+and its congener, <i>trifolium striatum</i>, with which it is often confused,
+while the better-known hare's-foot also covers a good deal of the
+ground. But there is a sad tale to tell of the plant which once the
+chief pride of these shingles, the starry-headed trefoil, a very lovely
+pink flower fringed with silky hairs, which, though not a native, has
+been naturalized near the bank of the harbour since 1804, but now, owing
+to the enclosures made for ship-building works, has been all but
+exterminated. "This," wrote the author of the <i>Flora of Sussex</i> (1907)
+"is one of the most beautiful of our wildflowers, and is found in
+Britain at Shoreham only. Fortunately it is very difficult to extirpate
+any of the <i>leguminosæ</i>, and it may therefore be hoped that it may long
+continue to adorn the beach at Shoreham." The hope seems likely to be
+frustrated. Among the rubble of concrete slabs, and piles of timber,
+only three or four tufts of the trefoil were surviving last year, with
+every likelihood of these also disappearing as the place is further
+"developed." The second of the Shoreham rarities, the pale yellow vetch
+(<i>vicia lutea</i>) has fared better, owing to its wider range, and is still
+scattered freely over the yet unenclosed shingles. It is a charming
+flower; but its doom in Sussex seems to be inevitable, for the
+bungalows, with their back-yards, tennis-courts, "tradesmen's
+entrances," and other amenities of villadom, will doubtless continue to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+encroach upon what was once a wild and unsullied tract.</p>
+
+<p>Still sadder is the fate of the devastated coast on the Brighton side of
+the harbour-mouth, where the low cliffs that overlook the lagoon from
+Southwick to Fisher's-gate have long been known to botanists as worthy
+of some attention. Here, on the grassy escarpment, the rare Bithynian
+vetch used once to grow, as we learn from Mrs. Merrifield's interesting
+<i>Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton</i> (1860); and here we may
+still find such plants as the sea-radish, a large coarse crucifer with
+yellow flowers and queer knotted seed-pods; the blue clary, or
+wild-sage, running riot in great profusion; the fragrant soft-leaved
+fennel; the strange star-thistle (<i>calcitrapa</i>), so-called from its
+fancied resemblance to an ancient and diabolical military instrument,
+the caltrop, an iron ball armed with sharp points, which was thrown on
+the ground to maim the horses in a cavalry charge; the pale-flowered
+narrow-leaved flax; and lastly, that rather uncanny shrub of the
+poisonous nightshade order, with small purple flowers and scarlet
+berries, which is called the "tea-tree," though the tea which its leaves
+might furnish would hardly make a palatable brew.</p>
+
+<p>Below these cliffs, on an embankment that divides the waters of the
+lagoon from the seashore, there still flourishes in plenty the fleshy
+leaved samphire, once sought after for a pickle, and ever famous through
+the reference in <i>King Lear</i> to "one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> who gathers samphire, dreadful
+trade." In this locality there is no dreadful trade, except that of
+reducing a once pleasant shore to an unsightly slag-heap.</p>
+
+<p>Let me now turn from this melancholy spectacle to those Sussex shingles
+on which the Admiralty and the contractor have not as yet laid a heavy
+and ruinous hand. On some of the more spacious of these pebbly beaches,
+as on that which lies between Eastbourne and Pevensey, the traveller may
+still experience the feeling expressed by Shelley:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I love all waste</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And solitary places, where we taste</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The pleasure of believing what we see</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>From Langney Point one looks north-east along a desolate shore, beyond
+which the ruins of Pevensey Castle are seen in the distance, and the
+width of the shingly belt between the sea and the high-road is at this
+point scarcely less than a mile. A scene that is bleak and barren enough
+in its general aspect; but a search soon reveals the presence of floral
+treasures, the first of which is a rather rare member of the Pink
+family, the soapwort, which I had long sought in vain until I met with
+it growing in abundance close to the outskirts of Eastbourne, where it
+roots so luxuriantly in the loose shingles as to make one wonder why it
+is so fastidious elsewhere. Among other noticeable inhabitants of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+flats, or of the shallow marshy depressions which they enclose, are
+hairy crowfoot, catmint, white melilot, stinking groundsel,
+strawberry-headed trefoil, and candytuft&mdash;the last-named a rather
+unexpected flower in such a place.</p>
+
+<p>Still nearer to the sea, not many yards removed from the spray of the
+waves at their highest, the wild seakale is plentiful; a stout glabrous
+cabbage, with thick curly leaves and white cruciferous blossoms, it
+rises straight out of the bare stones, and thrives exceedingly when the
+folk who stroll along the shore can so far restrain their destructive
+tendencies as not to hack and mangle it. In its company, perhaps, or in
+similar situations, will be seen its first-cousin, the sea-rocket, a
+quaint and pleasant crucifer with zigzag stems, fleshy leaves, and pale
+lilac petals. The sea-pea, formerly native near Pevensey, is now hardly
+to be hoped for.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most naturally attractive spots on the Sussex coast is
+Cuckmere Haven, near Seaford, a gap in the chalk cliffs, about half a
+mile in width, through which the river Cuckmere finds a dubious exit to
+the sea. Were it not for the abomination of the rifle-butts, which
+sometimes close the shore to the public, no more delectable nook could
+be desired; and to the flower-lover the little shelf of shingle which
+forms the beach is full of charm. Here, growing along the grassy margin
+of brackish pools, and itself so like a flowering grass that a sharp eye
+is needed to detect it, one may find that singular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> umbelliferous
+plant&mdash;not at all resembling the other members of its tribe&mdash;the slender
+hare's-ear (<i>bupleurum tenuissimum</i>), thin, wiry, dark-green, with
+narrow lance-like leaves and minute yellow umbels. Near by, the small
+sea-heath, one of the prettiest of maritime flowers, makes a dense
+carpet; on the corner of the adjacent cliff the lesser and rarer
+sea-lavender (<i>statice binervosa</i>) is plentiful, and in the late summer
+blooms at a considerable height on the narrow ledges.</p>
+
+<p>Pagham "Harbour," a wild estuary of some extent, between Selsey and
+Bognor, is another locality that has earned a reputation for its
+flowers, the most remarkable of which is the very local proliferous
+pink, which has long been known as abundant on that portion of the
+coast, though elsewhere very infrequent. A pleasant walk of about three
+miles leads from Bognor to Pagham, along a sandy shore fringed with very
+luxuriant tamarisk-bushes; and when one reaches the stony reef where
+further progress is barred by the waters or sand-shoals of the
+"Harbour," the little pink, which bears a superficial resemblance to
+thrift, will be seen springing up freely among the pebbles. We are told
+that only one of its blossoms opens at a time; but this is the sort of
+statement, often copied from book to book, which is not verified by
+experience, or to which at least many exceptions must be admitted. What
+is certain is that the proliferous pink has a considerable share of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+distinctive grace of its family, and that the occasion of first
+encountering it will live in the flower-lover's memory.</p>
+
+<p>I have named but a few&mdash;those personally known to me&mdash;of the rarer or
+more characteristic shingle-flowers; and in so wide a field there is
+always the chance of new discoveries: hence the unfailing interest, to
+the botanist, of places which, apart from their flora, are likely to be
+shunned as wearisome. The shore itself is seldom without visitors; but
+the shingles that stretch back from the shore rarely attract the
+footsteps even of the hardiest walkers. It is only when there has been a
+murder in one of those solitary spots&mdash;or at least something that the
+newspapers can describe as "dramatic" or "sensational"&mdash;that the
+holiday-folk in the neighbouring towns forsake for a day or two the
+pleasures of pier or parade, and sally forth over the stony wildernesses
+in a search for "clues"; as when the "Crumbles," near Eastbourne, was
+the scene, two years ago, of a murder, and at a later date of a ghost.
+To discover the foot of some partially buried victim protruding from the
+pebbles&mdash;<i>that</i> is deemed a sufficient object for a pilgrimage. The gold
+of the sea-poppy and the pink of the thrift are trifles that are passed
+unseen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>BY DITCH AND DIKE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">On either side</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Crabbe.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Levels</span>," or "brooks," is the name commonly given in Sussex to a number
+of grassy tracts, often of wide extent, which, though still in a state
+of semi-wildness, have been so far reclaimed from primitive fens as to
+afford a rough pasturage for horses and herds of cattle, the ground
+being drained and intersected by dikes and sluggish streams. In these
+spacious and unfrequented flats wildfowl of various kinds are often to
+be seen; herons stand motionless by the pools, or flap slowly away if
+disturbed in their meditation; pewits wheel and cry overhead; and the
+redshank, most clamorous of birds during the nesting-season, makes such
+a din as almost to distract the attention of the intruding botanist. For
+it is the botanist who is specially drawn to these wild water-ways,
+where hours may be profitably spent in strolling beside the brooks, with
+the certainty of seeing many interesting plants and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> the chance of
+finding some unfamiliar ones; nor is there anything to mar his
+enjoyment, except the possible meeting with a bull on a wide arena from
+which there is no ready exit, save by jumping a muddy ditch or by
+crossing one of the narrow and precarious planks which do duty as
+footbridges.</p>
+
+<p>These "levels," though often bordering on a tidal river, are not
+themselves salt marshes, nor is their flora a maritime one; in that
+respect they differ from the East-coast fens described by Crabbe in one
+of his <i>Tales</i>, "The Lover's Journey"; a passage which has been praised
+as one of the best pictures ever given of dike-land scenery. There are
+lines in it which might be quoted of the Sussex as well as of the
+Suffolk marsh-meadows; but for me the verses are spoiled by the
+strangely apologetic tone which the poet assumed in speaking of the
+local plants:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Partake the nature of their fenny bed.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And so on. Did he think that his polite readers expected to hear of
+sweet peas and carnations beautifying the desolate mud-banks? The
+"dulness" seems to be&mdash;well, not on the part of the flowers. "Dull as
+ditchwater," they say. But ditchwater flowers are far from dull.</p>
+
+<p>Of Sussex marshes the most extensive are the Pevensey Levels; but the
+most pleasantly situated are those that lie just south of Lewes, where
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> valley of the Ouse widens into an oval plain before it narrows
+again towards Newhaven. From the central part of this alluvial basin the
+view is very striking all around; for the estuary seems to be everywhere
+enclosed, except to seaward, by the great smooth slopes of the chalk
+Downs. On its west side are three picturesque villages, Iford, Rodmell,
+and Southease, with churches and farms lying on the very verge of the
+"brooks": at the head, the quaint old houses and castle of Lewes rise
+conspicuous like a mediæval town.</p>
+
+<p>But to whichever of these watery wastes the flower-lover betakes
+himself, he will not lack for occupation. One of the first friends to
+greet him in the early summer, by the Lewes levels, will be the charming
+<i>Hottonia</i>, or "water-violet," as it is misnamed; for though the petals
+are pink, its yellow eye and general form proclaim it to be of the
+<i>primulaceæ</i>, and "water-primrose" should by preference be its title.
+There are few prettier sights than a company of these elegant flowers
+rising clear above the surface, their slender stems bearing whorls of
+the pink blossoms, while the dark green featherlike leaves remain
+submerged. This "featherfoil," as it is sometimes called, is as lovely
+as the primrose of the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Companions or near neighbours of the <i>Hottonia</i> are the arrow-head, at
+once recognized by its bold sagittate leaves, and the frog-bit, another
+flower of three white petals, whose small reniform foliage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> floating on
+the brooks, gives it the appearance of a dwarf water-lily. By no means
+common, but growing in profusion where it grows at all, the dainty
+little frog-bit, once met with, always remains a favourite. The true
+water-lilies, both the white and the yellow, are also native on the
+levels; so, too, is the quaint water-milfoil, with its much-cut
+submerged leaves resembling those of the featherfoil, and its numerous
+erect flower-spikes dotting the surface of the pools. All these
+water-nymphs may be seen simultaneously blossoming in June.</p>
+
+<p>More prominent than such small aquatics are the tall-growing kinds which
+lift their heads two or three feet above the waters. Of these quite the
+handsomest is the flowering rush (<i>butomus</i>), stately and pink-petaled;
+among the rest are the two water-plantains (the lesser one rather
+uncommon); the water-speedwell, a gross and bulky <i>veronica</i> which lacks
+the charm of its smaller relative the brook-lime; and the queer
+mare's-tails, which in the midst of a running stream look like a number
+of tiny fir-trees out of their element. The umbelliferous family is also
+well represented. Wild celery is there; and the showy water-parsnip
+(<i>sium</i>); the graceful tubular water-dropwort, and its big neighbour the
+horse-bane, which in some places swells to an immense size in the centre
+of the ditches. On the margin grows the pretty trailing money-wort, or
+"creeping Jenny"; and with it, maybe, the white-blossomed brook-weed, or
+water-pimpernel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> which at first sight has more likeness to the
+crucifers than to its real relatives the primroses, and is thus apt to
+puzzle those by whom it has not previously been encountered.</p>
+
+<p>Rambling beside these so-called brooks, which are mostly not brooks but
+channels of almost stagnant water, one cannot fail to remark the
+clannishness of many of the flowers: they grow in groups, monopolizing
+nearly the whole length of a ditch, and making a show by their united
+array of leaves or blossoms. In one part, perhaps, the slim water-violet
+predominates; then, as you turn a corner, a long vista of arrow-heads
+meets the eye, nothing but arrow-heads between bank and bank, their
+sharp, barbed foliage topping the surface in a phalanx: or again, you
+may come upon fifty yards of frog-bit, a multitude of small green
+bucklers that entirely hide the water; or a radiant colony of
+water-lilies, whose broad leaves make the intrusion of other aquatics
+scarcely possible, and provide a cool pavement for wagtail and moorhen
+to walk on. It is noticeable, too, that the lesser water-plantain,
+unlike the greater, is almost confined to one section of the levels; and
+in like manner the brook-weed and the burmarigold have each occupied for
+their headquarters the banks of a particular dike.</p>
+
+<p>The fringed buckbean (<i>villarsia</i>) is said to be an inhabitant of these
+brooks. I have not seen it there; but it may be found, sparsely, in the
+river Ouse, a short distance above Lewes, where its round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> leaves float
+on the quiet backwaters like those of a large frog-bit or a small
+water-lily, though the botanists tell us it is a gentian. I remember
+that on the first occasion when I saw it there, on a late summer day,
+there was only a single blossom left, and as that was on a deep pool,
+several yards from the bank, there was no choice but to swim for it. The
+great yellow cress (<i>nasturtium amphibium</i>), a glorified cousin of the
+familiar water-cress, is also native on the Ouse above Lewes, less
+frequently below.</p>
+
+<p>More spacious than the Lewes levels, but drearier, and on the whole less
+interesting, are those of Pevensey, which cover a wide tract to the east
+of Hailsham, formerly an inlet of the sea, where the sites of the few
+homesteads that rise above the flat meadows, such as Chilley and
+Horse-eye, were once islands in the bay. Walking north from Pevensey, by
+a road which traverses this inhospitable flat, one sees the walls of
+Hurstmonceux Castle in front, on what was originally the coast-line; on
+either side of the highway is a maze of ditches and dikes, among which
+rare flowers are to be found, notably the broad-leaved pepperwort, the
+largest and most remarkable of its family, and the great spearwort, said
+to be locally plentiful near Hurstmonceux. The bladderwort, reputed
+common on these marshes, seems to have become much scarcer than it was
+twenty years back.</p>
+
+<p>For other flowers, other fenny tracts may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> sought; Henfield Common,
+for instance, has the bog-bean, the marsh St. John's-wort, and still
+better, the marsh-cinquefoil. But of all Sussex water-meadows with which
+I am acquainted the richest are the Amberley Wild Brooks, which lie
+below Pulborough, adjacent to the tidal stream of the Arun, a piece of
+partially drained bog-land which in a wet winter season is apt to be
+flooded anew, and to revert to its primitive state of swamp. It is a
+glorious place to wander over, on a sunny August afternoon, with the
+great escarpment of the Downs, and the ever-prominent Chanctonbury Ring,
+close in view to the south; and in a long summer day the expedition can
+be combined with a visit to Arundel Park, only three miles distant, the
+best of parks, as being the least parklike and most natural, and having
+a goodly store of the wildflowers that are dwellers upon chalk hills.</p>
+
+<p>The Amberley Wild Brooks possess this great merit, that in addition to
+most of the aquatics and dike-land plants above-mentioned, they present
+a fine display of the tall riverside flowers. Their wet hollows that
+teem with frog-bit, arrow-head, water-parsnip, water-plantain, yellow
+cress, glaucous stitchwort, and other choice things, are fringed here
+and there with purple loosestrife, and with marsh-woundwort almost equal
+to the loosestrife in size and colour; and mingling with these in like
+luxuriance are yellow loosestrife, tansy, toadflax, and water-ragwort&mdash;a
+brilliant combination of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> purple flowers and gold. Then, as if the
+better to set off this spectacle, there is in some places a background
+of staid and massive herbs like the great water-dock,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As soothe the dazzled eye with sober sheen.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>One would fear that this wealth of diverse hues might even become
+embarrassing, were it not that the heart of the flower-lover is
+insatiable.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><i>The Comedy of Errors.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">One</span> of the first difficulties by which those who would learn their
+native flora are beset is the likeness which in some cases exists
+between one plant and another&mdash;not the close resemblance of kindred
+species, such as that found, for instance, among the brambles or the
+hawkweeds, which is necessarily a matter for expert discrimination, but
+the superficial yet often puzzling similarity in what botanists call the
+"habit" of wildflowers. Thus the horse-shoe vetch may easily be
+mistaken, by a beginner, for the bird's-foot trefoil, or the field
+mouse-ear chickweed for the greater stitchwort; and the differences
+between the dove's-foot crane's-bill and the less common <i>geranium
+pusillum</i> are not at first sight very apparent. Distinguishing features
+instantly recognized by an expert, who has taken, so to speak,
+finger-tip impressions of the plants, do not readily present themselves
+to the layman, whose only guide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> is the general testimony of structure,
+colour, and height.</p>
+
+<p>It is, moreover, unfortunate that some of the popular flower-books,
+owing to the slovenly way in which their descriptions are worded, are of
+little help; they not only fail to give the needed particulars where
+there is a real likeness, but often, where there is none, create
+confusion in the reader's mind by depicting quite dissimilar plants in
+almost identical terms. In Johns's <i>Flowers of the Field</i> (edition of
+1908), for example, the description of hedge-woundwort hardly differs
+verbally from that of black horehound, and might certainly mislead a
+novice who was studying hedgerow flowers. The same writer had an
+exasperating habit of repeatedly stating that various plants are "well
+distinguished" by certain features, when in fact it is very difficult,
+from the accounts given by him, to distinguish them at all!</p>
+
+<p>An earlier and better writer, Anne Pratt, did make an effort in her
+<i>Haunts of the Wild Flowers</i> to indicate the chief characteristics, as
+between the sea-plantain and the sea-arrowgrass, the hemp-agrimony and
+the valerian; but even she, when some of the labiate flowers were in
+question, dismissed them, not very helpfully, as "all growing in
+abundance, but so much alike that it needs a knowledge of botany to
+distinguish them from each other"! I have known a case where, owing to a
+picturesque but inaccurate account, in the same book, the Welsh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+stonecrop (<i>sedum Forsterianum</i>) was confused with the marsh St.
+John's-wort, which has leaves that bear a curious resemblance to those
+of the <i>sedum</i> tribe.</p>
+
+<p>Even writers of botanical handbooks seem not to realize with what
+difficulties the uninitiated are faced, in regard to certain groups of
+plants where the several species, though quite distinct, bear a strong
+family likeness. The chamomiles, for instance, might well receive some
+special treatment in books; for it is no simple matter to assign their
+proper names to some four or five of the clan&mdash;the true chamomile, the
+wild chamomile, the corn chamomile, the stinking chamomile, and the
+"scentless" mayweed, which is <i>not</i> scentless. Many of the umbellifers
+also are notoriously difficult to identify; and among leguminous plants
+there is a bewildering similarity between black medick, or "nonsuch,"
+and the lesser clover (<i>trifolium minus</i>), which in turn is liable to be
+confused with the popular hop-clover or with the slender and fairy-like
+<i>trifolium filiforme</i>. "Small examples of <i>t. minus</i>," said a well-known
+botanist, Mr. H. C. Watson, "are so frequently misnamed <i>t. filiforme</i>,
+that I trust only my own eyes for it."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> "As like as two peas" is a
+saying which finds fulfilment in these and other examples.</p>
+
+
+<p>The clovers are indeed a perplexing family; and it is not surprising
+that the identification of the "shamrock" has given cause for dispute.
+Two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> of the smaller trefoils, for example, <i>trifolium scabrum</i> and
+<i>striatum</i>, so closely resemble each other that a novice fails to
+appreciate the assurance given in the <i>Flora of Kent</i> that they "can
+very easily be separated." It is doubtless easy to separate one twin
+from another twin, Dromio of Ephesus from Dromio of Syracuse, when once
+you know how to do so; but until you have acquired that knowledge there
+is material for a "comedy of errors." The majority of folk are much more
+apt to confuse plants than to distinguish them: witness such names as
+"fool's-parsley" and "fool's-watercress." Fools there are; yet anyone
+who has spent time in studying wildflowers, with no better aid than that
+of the popular books on the subject, will hesitate to pass judgment on
+such folly; for as so good an observer as Richard Jefferies said: "If
+you really wish to identify with certainty, and have no botanist friend
+and no <i>magnum opus</i> of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult indeed
+to be quite sure."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> We have to be thankful for small mercies in this
+matter; and it may be recognized that in some cases&mdash;generally where the
+similarity is <i>not</i> great, as that between the strawberry-leaved
+cinquefoil and the wild strawberry, or between the feverfew and the
+scentless mayweed&mdash;the books occasionally give a word of advice to "the
+young botanist." Nine times out of ten, however, that young fellow, or
+perchance old fellow (for one may be young as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> a botanist, while by no
+means young in years), must shift for himself; and doing so, he will
+gradually learn by experience what a number of likenesses there are
+among plants, and how many mistakes may be made before a sure
+acquaintance is arrived at.</p>
+
+
+<p>The name of "mockers" is sometimes given by gardeners to weeds that are
+so like certain valued plants as to be easily mistaken for them; and in
+the same way, in the search for wildflowers, one's attention is often
+distracted, as, for instance, if one is looking for the spineless
+meadow-thistle, the eye may be baffled by innumerable knapweed blossoms
+of the same hue; the clustered bell-flower will feign to be the autumnal
+gentian, its neighbour on the chalk downs; or the blossoms and leaves of
+the purple saxifrage on the high mountains are aped by the ubiquitous
+wild thyme.</p>
+
+<p>Of all these likenesses the most perilous is that between the malodorous
+ramsons, which have a very abiding smell of garlic, and the highly
+esteemed lily of the valley. Hence a story which I once heard from the
+affable keeper who presides over a wooded hill in Westmorland where the
+lily of the valley abounds, and where visitors are permitted to pick as
+many flowers as they like after payment of a shilling. Seeing a
+gentleman busily engaged in gathering a large bunch of ramsons, the
+keeper, suspecting error, asked him what he supposed himself to be
+picking. "Why, lilies of the valley, of course," was the reply. When the
+truth was explained, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> visitor thanked the keeper cordially, and
+added: "I was picking the flowers for my wife: but if I had brought her
+a present of garlic she would have had something to say to me. I myself
+have lost the sense of smell."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Likeness or unlikeness&mdash;it is all a matter of observation. To a
+stranger, every sheep in the flock has a face like that of her fellows:
+to the shepherd there are no two sheep alike.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>BOTANESQUE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What is it? a learned man</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Could give it a clumsy name.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let him name it who can,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The beauty would be the same.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the difficulties that waylay the beginner must be reckoned the
+botanical phraseology. We have heard of "the language of flowers," and
+of its romantic associations; but the language of botany is another
+matter, and though less picturesque is equally cryptic and not to be
+mastered without study.</p>
+
+<p>When, for example, we read of a certain umbelliferous plant that its
+"cremocarp consists of two semicircular-ovoid mericarps, constricted at
+the commissure"&mdash;or when, with our lives in our hands, so to speak, we
+experiment in fungus-eating, and learn that a particular mushroom has
+its stem "fistulose, subsquamulose, its pileus membranaceous, rarely
+subcarnose, when young ovato-conic, then campanulate, at length torn and
+revolute, deliquescent, and clothed with the flocculose fragments of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+the veil"&mdash;we probably feel that some further information would be
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>A friend who had been reading a series of articles on botany once
+remarked to me that "they could scarcely be said to be written in any
+known language, but were in a new tongue which might perhaps be called
+Botanesque."</p>
+
+<p>But it is of the botanesque nomenclature that I now wish to speak. The
+faculty of bestowing appropriate names is at all times a gift, an
+inspiration, most happy when least laboured, and often eluding the
+efforts of learned and scientific men. By schoolboys it is sometimes
+exhibited in perfection; as in a case that I remember at a public
+school, where three brothers of the name of Berry were severally known,
+for personal reasons, as Bilberry, Blackberry, and Gooseberry, the
+fitness of which botanical titles was never for a moment impugned.</p>
+
+<p>But botanists rarely invent names so well. The nomenclature of plants,
+like that of those celestial flowers, the stars, is a queer jumble of
+ancient and modern, classical learning and mediæval folk-lore, in which
+the really characteristic features are often overlooked. In this respect
+the Latin names are worse offenders than the English; and one is
+sometimes tempted, in disgust at their pedantic irrelevance, to ignore
+them altogether, and to exclaim with the poet:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What's in a name? That which we call a rose</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By any other name would smell as sweet.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But this would be an error; for a name does greatly enhance the interest
+of an object, be it boy, or bird, or flower; and the Greek and Latin
+plant-names, cumbrous and far-fetched though many of them are&mdash;as when
+the saintfoin is absurdly labelled <i>onobrychis</i>, on the supposition that
+its scent provokes an ass to bray&mdash;form, nevertheless, a useful link
+between botanists of different nations and a safeguard against the
+confusion that arises from a variety of local terms.</p>
+
+<p>Among the English names also there are some clumsy appellations, and in
+a few cases the Latin ones are much pleasanter: <i>stellaria</i>, for
+example, as I have already said, is more elegant than "stitchwort."
+"What have I done?" asks the small cousin of the woodruff, in Edward
+Carpenter's poem, when it justly protests against its hideous
+christening by man:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done? Man came,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Evolutional upstart one,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With the gift of giving a name</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To everything under the sun.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What have I done? Man came</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">(They say nothing sticks like dirt),</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Looked at me with eyes of blame,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And called me "Squinancy-wort."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But on the whole the English names of flowers are simpler and more
+suggestive than the Latin; certainly "monk's-hood" is preferable to
+<i>aconitum</i>, "rest-harrow" to <i>ononis</i>, "flowering rush" to <i>butomus</i>;
+and so on, through a long list: and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> therefore seems rather strange
+that the native titles should sometimes be ousted by the foreign. I have
+met botanists who had quite forgotten the English, and were obliged to
+ask me for the scientific term before they could sufficiently recall the
+plant of which we were speaking.</p>
+
+<p>The prefix "common" is often very misleading in the English
+nomenclature. Anyone, for example, who should go confidently searching
+for the "common hare's-ear" would soon find that he had got his work cut
+out. There are, in fact, not many plants that are everywhere common;
+most of those that are so described should properly be classed as
+<i>local</i>, because, while plentiful in some districts, they are infrequent
+in others.</p>
+
+<p>Botanical names fall mainly into three classes, the medicinal, the
+commemorative, the descriptive. The old uses of plants by the herbalists
+mark the prosaic origin of many of the names; some of which, such as
+"goutweed," at once explain themselves, as indicating supposed remedies
+for ills that flesh is heir to. Others, if less obvious, are still not
+far to seek; the "scabious," for example, derived from the Latin
+<i>scabies</i>, was reputed to be a cure for leprosy: a few, like
+"eye-bright" (<i>euphrasia</i>, gladness), have a more cheerful significance.
+When we turn to such titles as <i>centaurea</i>, for the knapweed and
+cornflower, some explanation is needed, to wit, that Chiron, the
+fabulous centaur, was said to have employed these herbs in the exercise
+of his healing art.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The commemorative names are mostly given in honour of accomplished
+botanists, it being a habit of mankind, presumably prompted by the
+acquisitive instincts of the race, to name any object, great or
+small&mdash;from a mountain to a mouse&mdash;as <i>belonging</i> to the person who
+discovered or brought it to notice. In the case of wildflowers this is
+not always a very felicitous system of distinguishing them, though
+perhaps better than the utilitarian jargon of the pharmacop&oelig;ia.
+Sometimes, indeed, it is beyond cavil; as in the fit association of the
+little <i>linnæa borealis</i> with the great botanist who loved it; but when
+a number of the less important professors of the science are
+immortalized in this way, there seems to be something rather irrelevant,
+if not absurd, in such nomenclature. Why, for example, should two of the
+more charming crucifers be named respectively <i>Hutchinsia</i> and
+<i>Teesdalia</i>, after a Miss Hutchins and a Mr. Teesdale? Why should the
+water-primrose be called <i>Hottonia</i>, after a Professor Hotton; or the
+sea-heath <i>Frankenia</i>, after a Swedish botanist named Franken; and so
+on, in a score of other cases that might be cited? The climax is reached
+when the <i>rubi</i> and the <i>salices</i> are divided into a host of more or
+less dubious sub-species, so that a Bloxam may have his bramble, and a
+Hoffmann his willow, as a possession for all time!</p>
+
+<p>The most rational, and also the most graceful manner of naming flowers
+is the descriptive; and here, luckily, there are a number of titles,
+English or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Latin, with which no fault can be found. Spearwort,
+mouse-tail, arrow-head, bird's-foot, colt's-foot, blue-bell, bindweed,
+crane's-bill, snapdragon, shepherd's purse, skull-cap, monk's-hood,
+ox-tongue&mdash;these are but a few of the well-bestowed names which, by an
+immediate appeal to the eye, fix the flower in the mind; they are at
+once simple and appropriate: in others, such as Adonis, Columbine,
+penny-cress, cranberry, lady's-mantle, and thorow-wax, the description,
+if less manifest at first sight, is none the less charming when
+recognized. The Latin, too, is at times so befitting as to be accepted
+without demur; thus <i>iris</i>, to express the rainbow tints of the flowers,
+needs no English equivalent, and <i>campanula</i> has only to be literally
+rendered as "bell-flower." In <i>campanula hederacea</i>, the "ivy-leaved
+bell-flower," we see nomenclature at its best, the petals and the
+foliage of a floral gem being both faithfully described.</p>
+
+<p>A glance at a list of British wildflowers will bring to mind various
+other ways in which names have been given to them&mdash;some familiar, some
+romantic, a few even poetical. Among the homely but not unpleasing kind,
+are "Jack by the hedge" for the garlic mustard; "John go to bed at noon"
+for the goat's-beard; "creeping Jenny" for the money-wort; and
+"lady's-fingers" for the kidney-vetch. Of the romantically named plants
+the most conspicuous example is doubtless the forget-me-not, its English
+name contrasting, as it does, with the more realistic Latin <i>myosotis</i>,
+which detects in the shape<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of the leaves a likeness to a mouse's ear.
+None, perhaps, can claim to be so poetical as Gerarde's name for the
+clematis; for "traveller's joy" was one of those happy inspirations
+which are unfortunately rare.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE OPEN DOWNLAND</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Open hither, open hence,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Scarce a bramble weaves a fence.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> speaking of some Sussex water-meadows, I mentioned as one of their
+many delights the views which they offer of the never distant Downs. The
+charm of these chalk hills is to me only inferior to that of real
+mountains; there are times, indeed, when with clouds resting on the
+summits, or drifting slowly along the coombes, one could almost imagine
+himself to be in the true mountain presence. I have watched, on an
+autumn day, a long sea of vapour rolling up from the weald against the
+steep northern front of the Downs, while their southern slopes were
+still basking in sunshine; and scarcely less wonderful than the clouds
+themselves are the cloud-shadows that may often be seen chasing each
+other across the wide open tracts which lie in the recesses of the
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Majestic mountains," "exalted promontories," were among the
+descriptions given of the Downs by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Gilbert White: what we now prize in
+them is not altitude but spaciousness. In Rosamund Marriott Watson's
+words:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Broad and bare to the skies</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The great Down-country lies.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Its openness, with the symmetry of the free curves and contours into
+which the chalk shapes itself, is the salient feature of the range; and
+to this may be added its liberal gift of solitude and seclusion. Even
+from the babel of Brighton an hour's journey on foot can bring one into
+regions where a perpetual Armistice Day is being celebrated, with
+something better than the two minutes of silence snatched from the
+townsfolk's day of din.</p>
+
+<p>The Downs are also open in the sense of being free, to a very great
+extent, from the enclosures which in so many districts exclude the
+public from the land. In some parts, unfortunately, the abominable
+practice of erecting wire fences is on the increase among sheep-farmers;
+but generally speaking, a naturalist may here wander where he will.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the flowering plants of the Downs, the gorse is at once the
+earliest and the most impressive; no spectacle that English wildflowers
+can offer, when seen <i>en masse</i>, excels that of the numberless
+furze-bushes on a bright April day. There is then a vividness in the
+gorse, a depth and warmth of that "deep gold colour" beloved by
+Rossetti, which far surpasses the glazed metallic sheen of a field<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> of
+buttercups. It is pure gold, in bullion, the palpable wealth of
+Cr&oelig;sus, displayed not in flat surfaces, but in bars, ingots, and
+spires, bough behind bough, distance on distance, with infinite variety
+of light and shade, and set in strong relief against a background of
+sombre foliage. Thus it has the appearance, in full sunshine, almost of
+a furnace, a reddish underglow and heart of flame which is lacking even
+in the broom. To creep within one of these gorse-temples when illumined
+by the sun, is to enjoy an ecstasy both of colour and of scent.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of the furze, the Downland flowers are mostly low of
+stature, as befits their exposed situation, a small but free people
+inhabiting the wind-swept slopes and coombes, and well requiting the
+friendship of those who visit them in their fastnesses. One of the
+earliest and most welcome is the spring whitlow-grass, which abounds on
+ant-hills high up on the ridges, forming a dense growth like soft down
+on the earth's cheek. Here it hastes to get its blossoming done before
+the rush of other plants, its little reddish stalk rising from a rosette
+of short leaves, and bearing the tiny terminal flowers with white deeply
+cleft petals and anthers of yellow hue. Its near successor is the
+equally diminutive mouse-ear (<i>cerastium semidecandrum</i>), a
+white-petaled plant of a deep dark green, viscous, and thickly covered
+with hairs.</p>
+
+<p>When summer has come, the flowers of the Downs are legion&mdash;yellow
+bird's-foot trefoil, and horse-shoe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> vetch; milkwort pink, white, or
+blue; fragile rock-rose; graceful dropwort; salad burnet;
+squinancy-wort, and a hundred more,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> of which one of the fairest,
+though commonest, is the trailing silverweed, whose golden petals are in
+perfect contrast with the frosted silver of the foliage. But the special
+ornament of these hills, known as "the pride of Sussex," is the
+round-headed rampion, a small, erect, blue-bonneted flower which is no
+"roundhead" in the Puritan sense, but rather of the gay company of
+cavaliers. Abundant along the Downs from Eastbourne to Brighton, and
+still further to the west, it is a plant of which the eye never tires.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>But it is the orchids that chiefly draw one's thoughts to Downland when
+midsummer is approaching. "Have you seen the bee orchis?" is then the
+question that is asked; and to wander on the lower slopes at that season
+without seeing the bee orchis would argue a tendency to
+absent-mindedness. I used to debate with myself whether the likeness to
+a bee is real or fanciful, till one day, not thinking of orchids at all,
+I stopped to examine a rather strange-looking bee which I noticed on the
+grass, and found that the insect was&mdash;a flower. That, so far, settled
+the point; but I still think that the fly orchis is the better imitation
+of the two.</p>
+
+<p>The early spider orchis is native on the eastern range of the Downs,
+near the lonely hamlet of Tels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>combe and in a few other localities in
+the heart of the hills; where, unless one has luck&mdash;and I had none&mdash;the
+search for a small flower on those far-stretching slopes is like the
+proverbial hunt for a needle in a hayloft. The only noticeable object on
+the hillside was an apparently dead sheep, about a hundred feet below
+me, lying flat on her back, with hoofs pointing rigidly to the sky; but
+as it was <i>orchis</i>, not <i>ovis</i>, that I was in quest of, I was about to
+pass on, when I saw a shepherd, who had just come round a shoulder of
+the Down, uplift the sheep and set her on her legs, whereupon, to my
+surprise, she ambled away as if nothing had been amiss with her. I
+learnt from the shepherd that such accidents are not uncommon, and that
+having once "turned turtle" the sluggish creature (as mankind has made
+her) would certainly have perished unless he had chanced to come to the
+rescue. When I told the good man what had brought me to that
+unfrequented coombe, he said, as country people often do, that he did
+not "take much notice" of wildflowers; nevertheless, after inquiring
+about the appearance of the orchids, he volunteered to note the place
+for me if he chanced to see them. Then, as we were parting, he called
+after me: "And if you see any more sheep on their backs, I'll thank you
+if you'll turn 'em over." This I willingly promised, on the principle
+not only of humanity, but that one good turn deserves another. Next
+season, perhaps, our friendly compact may be renewed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The dingle in which Telscombe lies is rich in flowers; in the Maytime of
+which I am speaking, there was a profusion of hound's-tongue in bloom,
+and a good sprinkling of that charming upland plant, deserving of a
+pleasanter name, the field fleawort; but of what I was searching for, no
+trace. I had walked into the spider's "parlour," but the spider was not
+at home. More fortunate was a lady who on that same day brought to the
+Hove exhibition a flower which she had casually picked on another part
+of the Downs where she was taking a walk. Sitting down for a rest, she
+saw an unknown plant on the turf. It was a spider orchis.</p>
+
+<p>Much less unaccommodating, to me, was the musk orchis, a still smaller
+species which grows in several places where the northern face of the
+Downs is intersected, as below Ditchling Beacon, by deep-cut
+tracks&mdash;they can hardly be called bridle-paths&mdash;that slant upward across
+the slope. I was told by Miss Robinson, of Saddlescombe, to whose wide
+knowledge of Sussex plants many flower-lovers besides myself have been
+indebted, that she once picked a musk orchis from horseback as she was
+riding along the hill side. It is a sober-garbed little flower, with not
+much except its rarity to signalize it; but an orchis is an orchis
+still; there is no member of the family that has not an interest of its
+own. Many of them are locally common on these hills; to wit, the early
+purple, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> fly, the frog, the fragrant, the spotted, the pyramidal,
+and most lovely of all, the dwarf orchis; also the twayblade, the
+lady's-tresses, and one or two of the helleborines. The green-man
+orchis, not uncommon in parts of Surrey and Kent, will here be sought in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>But the Downs are not wholly composed of grassy sheep-walks and
+furze-dotted wastes; they include many tracts of cultivated land, where,
+if we may judge from the botanical records of the past generation,
+certain cornfield weeds which are now very rare, such as the mouse-tail
+and the hare's-ear, were once much more frequent. It is rather strange
+that the improved culture, which has nearly eliminated several
+interesting species, should have had so little effect on the charlock
+and the poppy, which still colour great squares and sections of the
+Downs with their rival tints, their yellow and scarlet rendered more
+conspicuous by having the quiet tones of these rolling uplands for a
+background.</p>
+
+<p>In autumn, when most of the wealden flowers are withering, the chalk
+hills are still decked with gentians and other late-growing kinds; and
+the persistence, even into sere October, of such children of the sun as
+the rampion and the rock-rose is very remarkable. The autumnal aspect of
+the Downs is indeed as beautiful as any; for there are then many days
+when a blissful calm seems to brood over the great coombes and hollows,
+and the fields lie stretched out like a many-coloured map, the rich
+browns of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the ploughlands splashed and variegated with patches of
+yellow and green. Then, too, one sees and hears overhead the joy-flight
+of the rooks and daws, as round and round they circle, higher and
+higher, like an inverted maelstrom swirling upward, till it breaks with
+a chorus of exulting cries as gladdening to the ear as is the sight of
+those aerial man&oelig;uvres to the eye.</p>
+
+<p>The final impression which the Downs leave on the mind is, I repeat, one
+of freedom and space; and this is felt by the flower-lover as strongly
+as by any wanderer on these hills, these "blossoming places in the
+wilderness," as Mr. Hudson has called them, "which make the thought of
+our trim, pretty, artificial gardens a weariness."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O my wild ones! they tell me more than these.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><span class="smcap">Meredith.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> domestication of plants, as of animals, is a concern of such
+practical importance that in most minds it quite transcends whatever
+interest may be felt in the beauty of wildflowers. But the many delights
+of the garden ought not to blind us to the fact that there is in the
+wild a peculiar quality which the domesticated can never reproduce, and
+that the plant which is free, even if it be the humblest and most
+common, has a charm for the nature-lover which the more gorgeous
+captives of the garden must inevitably lack. If much is gained by
+domestication, much is also lost. This, doubtless, is felt less strongly
+in the taming of plants than of animals, but in either case it holds
+true.</p>
+
+<p>To some of us, it must be owned, zoological gardens are a nightmare of
+confusion, and the now almost equally popular "rock-garden" a place
+which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> leaves an impression of dulness and futility; for while we fully
+recognize the interest, such as it is, of inducing Alpines to grow under
+altered conditions of climate, there is an irrelevance in the assembling
+of heterogeneous flowers in one enclosure, which perplexes and wearies
+the mind. For just as a cosmopolitan city is no city at all, and a Babel
+is no language, so a multifarious rock-garden, where a host of alien
+plants are grouped in unnatural juxtaposition, is a collection not of
+flowers but of "specimens." For scientific purposes&mdash;the determination
+of species, and viewing the plants in all stages of their growth&mdash;it may
+be most valuable: to the mere flower-lover, as he gazes on such a
+concourse, the thought that arises is: "What's Hecuba to him, or he to
+Hecuba?" It is a museum, a herbarium, if you like; but hardly, in any
+true sense, a garden.</p>
+
+<p>I once had the experience of living next door to a friend who was
+smitten with the mania for rock-gardening, and from my study window I
+overlooked the process from start to finish&mdash;first the arrival of many
+tons of limestone blocks and chips; then the construction of artificial
+crags and gullies, moraines and escarpments, until a line of miniature
+Alps rose to view; and lastly the planting of various mountain flowers
+in the situations suited to their needs. Then followed many earnest
+colloquies between the creator of this fair scene and a neighbour
+enthusiast, as they walked about the garden together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> and inspected it
+plant by plant, much as a farmer goes his rounds to examine his oats or
+turnips. They surveyed the world, botanically speaking, from China to
+Peru. Yet somehow I felt that, just as I would rather see a sparrow at
+large than an eagle in captivity, so to be shown round that
+well-fashioned rockery was less entertaining than to show oneself round
+the most barren of the adjacent moors. "Herbes that growe in the
+fieldes," wrote a fifteenth-century herbalist, "be bettere than those
+that growe in gardenes."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+
+<p>This, however, is by no means the common opinion; on the contrary, there
+is in most minds a disregard or veritable contempt for wildflowers as
+being, with a few exceptions, "weeds," and quite unworthy of comparison
+with the inmates of a garden.</p>
+
+<p>In her <i>Haunts of the Wild Flowers</i>, Anne Pratt has recorded how she was
+invited by a cottager to throw away a bunch of "ordinary gays" that she
+was carrying, and to gather some garden flowers in their stead.</p>
+
+<p>I once took a long walk over the moors in Derbyshire in order to visit
+certain rare flowers of the limestone dales, among them the
+speedwell-leaved whitlow-grass (<i>draba muralis</i>), a specimen of which I
+brought home. This little crucifer is very insignificant in appearance;
+and the fact that anyone should plod many miles to gather it so upset
+the gravity of an extremely demure and respectful servant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> girl, when
+she saw it on my mantelpiece, that to her own visible shame and
+confusion she broke into a loud giggle, somewhat as Bernard Shaw's
+chocolate-cream soldier failed to conceal his amusement when the
+portrait of the hero of the cavalry charge was shown to him by its
+possessor.</p>
+
+<p>Even in the case of those wildings whose beauty or scent has made them
+generally popular, it is thought the highest compliment to domesticate
+them, to bring them&mdash;poor waifs and strays that they are&mdash;from their
+forlorn savage state into the fold of civilization, just as a
+"deserving" pauper might be received into an almshouse, or an orphan
+child into one of Dr. Barnardo's homes. And strange to say, this
+reverential belief in the garden, as enhancing the merits of the wild,
+has found its way into many of the wildflower books: for instance, in
+Johns's well-known work, <i>Flowers of the Field</i> (of the <i>field</i>, be it
+noted), we are informed that the lily of the valley is "a universally
+admired garden plant, and that the sweet-brier is "deservedly"
+cultivated.</p>
+
+<p>The more refined wildflowers, it will be seen, can thus rise, as it
+were, from the ranks, at the cost of their freedom, which happens to be
+the most interesting thing about them, to be enrolled in the army of the
+civilized; and the result has been that some of the more distinguished
+plants, such as the <i>daphne mezereum</i>, are fast losing their place among
+British wildflowers, and becoming nothing better than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> prisoners and
+captives of the parterre. This disdain that is felt for whatever is
+wild, natural, and unowned, is largely responsible for the unscrupulous
+digging up of any attractive plants that may be discovered, a subject of
+which I propose to speak in the next chapter.</p>
+
+<p>The absurdity of the typical gardener's attitude toward wildflowers is
+well illustrated by some remarks in Delamer's <i>The Flower Garden</i> (1856)
+with reference to that exceedingly beautiful plant, the tutsan. "Tutsan
+is a hardy shrubby St. John's-wort, largely employed by gardeners of the
+last century; but it has now, for the most part, retired from business,
+in consequence of the arrival of more attractive and equally serviceable
+newcomers. One or two tutsan bushes may be permitted to help to form a
+screen of shrubs, in consideration of the days of auld lang syne."</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the tutsan is not "retiring from business" in Nature's
+garden. It seems to me that, instead of carrying more and more
+wildflowers into captivity, it would be much wiser to set at liberty the
+many British plants that are now under detention. I would instruct my
+gardener (if I had one) to lift very carefully the daphnes, the lilies
+of the valley, the tutsans, the cornflowers, the woodruffs, and the rest
+of the native clan, and to plant them out, each according to its taste,
+by bank or hedgerow, in field, common, or wood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>PICKING AND STEALING</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flower in the crannied wall,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I pluck you out of the crannies.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is, as I have said, a positive contempt in many minds for the
+wildflower; that is, for the flower which is regarded as being no one's
+"property." But the flora of a country, rightly considered, is very far
+from being unowned; it is the property of the people, and when any
+species is diminished or extirpated the loss is not private but
+national. We have already reached a time, as many botanists think, when
+the choicer British flowers need some sort of protection.</p>
+
+<p>That some injury should be caused to our native flora by improved
+culture, drainage, building, and the extension of towns, is inevitable;
+though these losses might be considerably lessened if there were a more
+general regard for natural beauty. But that is all the stronger reason
+for discountenancing such damage as is done in mere thoughtlessness, or,
+worse, for selfish purposes; and it were greatly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> to be wished that some
+of the good folk who pray that their hands may be kept "from picking and
+stealing" would so far widen the scope of their sympathies as to include
+the rarer wildflowers.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted that there is an immense amount of wasteful
+flower-picking by children, and also by persons who are old enough to
+know better. Nothing is commoner, in Spring, than to see piles of
+freshly gathered hyacinths or cowslips abandoned by the roadside; and
+many other flowers share the same fate, including, as I have noticed,
+the beautiful green-winged meadow orchis. Trippers and holiday-makers
+are often very mischievous: I have seen them, for instance, on the
+ramparts of Conway Castle, hooking and tearing the red valerian which is
+an ornament to the grey old walls. I was told by a friend who lives in a
+district where the rare meadow-sage (<i>salvia pratensis</i>) is native, that
+he is compelled to pluck the blue flowers just before the August
+bank-holiday, in order to save the plant itself from being up-rooted and
+carried off.</p>
+
+<p>Primroses, abundant as they still are in many places, have nearly
+disappeared from others, in consequence of the depredations of
+flower-vendors; and there was a time when they were seriously threatened
+in the neighbourhood of London because a certain fashionable cult was at
+its height. Witness the following "Idyll of Primrose Day" by some
+unknown versifier:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How blest was dull old Peter Bell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whom Wordsworth sung in days of yore!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A primrose by a river's brim</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A yellow primrose was to him,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And it was nothing more.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alas! 'tis something more to us;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No longer Nature's meekest flower,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But symbol of consummate Quack,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Who by tall talk and knavish knack</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Could plant himself in power.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For his sweet sake we mourn, each spring,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Our lanes and hedgerows robbed and bare,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our woods despoiled by clumsy clown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That primrose-tufts may come to town</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For tuft-hunters to wear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And so, on snobbish Primrose Day,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">We envy Peter's simple lore:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A primrose, worn with fulsome fuss,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A yellow primrose is to us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Alas! and something more.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The nurseryman and the professional gardener have also much to answer
+for in the destruction of wildflowers. Take the following instance,
+quoted from the <i>Flora of Kent</i>, with reference to the cyclamen:
+"Towards the end of August, 1861, I was shown the native station of this
+plant. . . . The people in those parts had found out it was in request,
+and had almost entirely extirpated it, digging up the roots, and selling
+them for transplantation into shrubberies." In the same work it is
+recorded that, when the frog orchis was found in some abundance near
+Canterbury, "in a wonderfully short space of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> time the whole of this
+charming colony was dug and extirpated."</p>
+
+<p>Again, if it be permissible to call a spade a spade, what shall be said
+of those roving knights of the trowel, the unconscionable rock-gardeners
+who ride abroad in search of some new specimen for their collections? A
+late writer of very charming books on the subject has feelingly
+described how, after the discovery of some long-sought treasure, he
+craved a brief spell of repose, a sort of holy calm, before commencing
+operations. "We blessed ones," he said, referring to botanists as
+contrasted with ornithologists, "may sit down calmly, philosophically,
+beside our success, and gently savour all its sweetness, until it is
+time to take out the trowel after half an hour of restful rapture in our
+laurels."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>Other flower-fanciers there are who show much less circumspection. In
+Upper Teesdale, where the rare blue gentian (<i>gentiana verna</i>) is found
+on the upland pastures, I was told that a "gentleman" had come with two
+gardeners in a motor, and departed laden with a number of these
+beautiful Alpine flowers for transplantation to his private rockery. The
+nation which permits such a theft&mdash;far worse than stealing from a
+private garden&mdash;deserves to possess no wildflowers at all; and such a
+botanist, if botanist he can be called, deserves to be himself
+transplanted, or transported&mdash;to Botany Bay.</p>
+
+<p>The same vandalism, in varying degrees, has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> at work in every part
+of the land, and nothing has yet been done effectively to check it,
+whether by legislation, education, or appeal to public opinion: it seems
+to be absolutely no one's business to protect what ought to be a
+cherished national possession. In no district, perhaps, has the greed of
+the collector been more unabashed than among the mountains of Cumberland
+and North Wales. "Thanks to the inconsiderate rapacity of the
+fern-getter," wrote Canon Rawnsley, in an Introduction to a <i>Guide to
+Lakeland</i>, "the few rarer sorts are fast disappearing. ... There has
+been, in the time past, quite a cruel and unnecessary uprooting of the
+rarer ferns and flowers;" and he went on to ask: "When will travellers
+learn that the fern by the wayside has a public duty to fulfil?"</p>
+
+<p>All such remonstrances have hitherto been in vain: neither the fear of
+God nor the fear of man has deterred the collector from his purpose. It
+is pleasant to read that in the seventeenth century a Welsh guide
+alleged "the fear of eagles" as a reason for not leading one of the
+earliest English visitors to the haunts of Alpine plants on the
+precipices of Carnedd Llewelyn; but unfortunately eagles are now as
+scarce as nurserymen and fern-filchers are numerous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>I found a deep hollow on the side of a great hill, a green concave,
+where I could rest and think in perfect quiet.<br />
+
+<span class="smcap" style="margin-left: 30em;">Richard Jefferies.</span><br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> a range of hills, the North Downs are inferior to those of Sussex in
+beauty and general interest. Their outline suggests no "greyhound backs"
+coursing along the horizon; nor have they that "living garment" of turf,
+woven by centuries of pasturing, which Hudson has matchlessly described.
+Their northern side is but a gradual slope leading up to a bleak
+tableland; and only when one emerges suddenly on their southern front,
+with its wide views across the weald, do their glories begin to be
+realized. In this steep declivity, facing the sun at noon, there is a
+distinctive and unfailing charm, quite unlike that of the corresponding
+escarpment of the South Downs: it forms, as it were, an inland riviera,
+a sheltered undercliff, green with long waving grasses, and sweet with
+marjoram and thyme, a haven where the wandering flower-lover may revel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+in glowing sunshine, or take a siesta, if so minded, under that most
+friendly of trees the white-beam.</p>
+
+<p>I have memories of many a pious Sabbath spent in this enchanted realm,
+with the wind in the beeches for anthem, and for incense the scent of
+marjoram enriching the air. To one who knows these fragrant banks it
+seems strange that though the wild thyme has been so celebrated by poets
+and nature-writers, the marjoram, itself a glorified thyme, has by
+comparison gone unsung. We are told in the books that it is a potherb,
+an aromatic stimulant, even a remedy for toothache. It may be all that;
+but it is something much better, a thing of beauty which might cure the
+achings not of the tooth only, but of the heart. Its relatives the
+lavender and the rosemary have not more charm. It was the <i>amaracus</i> of
+Virgil, the flower on whose sweetness the young Iulus rested, when he
+was spirited away by Venus to her secret abode:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She o'er the prince entrancing slumber strows,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And, fondling in her bosom, far away</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bears him aloft to high Idalian bowers,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where banks of marjoram sweet, in soft repose,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Enfold him, propped on beds of fragrant flowers.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>Who could wish for a diviner couch?</p>
+
+<p>Along this range of hills the chalk-pits, used or disused, are frequent
+at intervals, some of such size as to form landmarks visible at the
+distance of twenty or thirty miles. For a botanist, these
+amphitheatres,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> large or small, have always an attraction; for though
+they vary much in the quality of their flowers, and some have little to
+show beyond the commoner plants of a calcareous soil, there are a few
+which present a surprising array of the choicer kinds; and to light upon
+one of these treasure-troves is a joy indeed. I have in mind a large
+semicircular disused pit, lying high among the Downs, and bordered with
+abrupt grassy banks and coppices of beech, hazel, and fir, where during
+the past thirty years I have spent many long summer days, sometimes
+writing under the shade of the trees, at other times idling among the
+flowers, or watching the snakes that lie basking in the sun, or the
+kestrels that may often be seen hovering over the adjacent slopes. For
+all their unrivalled openness and sense of space, the Sussex Downs have
+no such "sun-trap" to show.</p>
+
+<p>One has heard of "the music of wild flowers."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> I used to call the
+floor of this chalk-pit "the orchistra," so numerous are the orchids
+that adorn it. The spotted orchis, the fragrant orchis, the pyramidal
+orchis, the bee orchis, the butterfly orchis, and the twayblade&mdash;these
+six are stationed there within a small compass. The marsh orchis grows
+below; the fly orchis is in the neighbouring thickets; in the
+beech-woods are the bird's-nest orchis, the broad-leaved helleborine,
+with its rare purple variety (<i>epipactis purpurata</i>), and the large
+white helleborine or egg orchis. A dozen of the family within the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+circuit of a short walk! The man orchis seems to be absent, though it
+grows in some plenty in similar places on the same line of hills.</p>
+
+
+<p>Another feature of the chalk-pit is the viper's bugloss. If, as Thoreau
+says, there is a flower for every mood of the mind, the viper's bugloss
+must surely belong to that mood which is associated with the pomps and
+splendours of the high summer noontide. Gorgeous and tropical in its
+colouring beyond all other British flowers, as it rears its bristly
+green spikes, studded profusely with the pink buds that are turning to
+an equally vivid blue, it seems instinct with the spirit of a fiery
+summer day. Like other members of the Borage group, it has the warm
+southern temperament; its name, too, suits it well; for there is
+something viperish in the almost fierce beauty of the plant, as if some
+passionate-hearted exotic had sprung up among the more staid and sober
+representatives of our native flora. Its richness never palls on us; we
+no more tire of its brilliance than of the summer itself.</p>
+
+<p>Akin to the bugloss, though less striking and less abundant, is the
+hound's-tongue, with its long downy leaves and numerous purple-red buds
+of a sombre and sullen hue that is not often to be matched. It has the
+misfortune, so we are told, to smell of mice; were it not for this
+hindrance to its career, it might justly be held in high esteem. Among
+the larger plants prominent on ledges of the chalk, or in near
+neighbourhood, are the mullein, the teazle, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> ploughman's-spikenard,
+and the deadly nightshade or dwale. The buckthorn is frequent in the
+hedges and thickets; and the traveller's-joy is climbing wherever it can
+get a hold.</p>
+
+<p>But it is on the shelving banks that skirt the margin of the pit that
+the comeliest flowers are to be found; the most beautiful of all,
+perhaps, is the rock-rose, a plant so delicate that its small golden
+petals will scarcely survive a journey in the vasculum, yet so hardy
+that it will flower to the very latest autumn days. The wild strawberry
+is creeping everywhere; and the crimson of the grass vetchling may
+occasionally be seen among the ranker herbage, to which the stalk seems
+to belong; on the shorter turf is the small squinancy-wort, lovely
+cousin of the woodruff, its pink and white petals chiselled like the
+finest ivory.</p>
+
+<p>The elegant yellow-wort, glaucous and perfoliate, and the handsome pink
+centaury, are common on the Downs; so, too, in the late summer, will be
+their less showy but always welcome relative, the autumnal gentian: all
+three have the firm and erect habit that is a property of the Gentian
+tribe. It is one of the many merits of these chalk hills that their
+flower-season is a prolonged one. Not the gentians only, with
+yellow-wort and centaury, are still vigorous in the autumn, but also the
+blue fleabane, clustered bell-flower, vervain, marjoram, basil, and many
+labiate herbs. Even in October, when the glory has long departed from
+the lowlands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> of the weald, there remains a brave show of blossom on
+these delectable hills.</p>
+
+<p>The Pilgrim's Way, often no more than a grassy track, runs eastward
+along the base of the Downs, interrupted here and there by the
+encroachment of parks and private estates, which now block the ancient
+route to Canterbury; but where Nature has provided so many shrines and
+cathedrals of her own, there is no need of any others; certainly I never
+lacked a holy place wherein to make my vows, many as were the
+pilgrimages on which I started.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion that I recall, I was joined in my quest by a rather
+strange fellow-traveller, a man who met me, coming from the opposite
+direction, and eagerly asked whether I had seen anyone on the hillside.
+When I assured him that nobody had passed that way, he turned and walked
+in my company, and presently confided to me that he was an attendant at
+a lunatic asylum, and was in pursuit of an inmate who had escaped an
+hour or two before. We went a short distance together, he peering into
+the coombes and bushy hollows, as incongruous a pair as could be
+imagined; yet it occurred to me that his mission, too, might be
+considered a botanical one, since there is a plant named the
+madwort&mdash;nay, worse, the "German madwort," a title which, in those
+feverish war-days, would of itself have justified incarceration.
+Nevertheless, as I always sympathize with escaped prisoners (provided,
+of course, that it is not <i>my</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> bed under which they conceal
+themselves), I was secretly glad that my companion's search was
+unavailing.</p>
+
+<p>To return to my chalk-pit: I have mentioned but a few of the many
+flowers that belong there; within a mile, or less, others and quite
+different ones are flourishing. The rampion, though very local in
+Surrey, is found in places along these Downs; so, too, is the strange
+yellow bugle, or "ground pine," which is much more like a diminutive
+pine than a bugle; also the still stranger fir-rape (<i>monotropa</i>), which
+lurks in the thickest shade of the beech-woods. That interesting shrub,
+the butcher's-broom, or "knee holly," as it is more agreeably called, is
+another native: it wears its small flower daintily, like a button-hole,
+on the centre of the rigid leaves of deepest green.</p>
+
+<p>A few miles east there is another chalk-pit which, though inferior in
+the number of its flowers, has a sprinkling of the man orchis, whose
+shape, if there is any likeness at all, seems to suggest a toy man
+dangling from a string; a simile which I prefer to that of a dead man
+dangling from the gallows. In the woods that crown this pit there is a
+profusion of the deadly nightshade; and I noticed that during the
+war-summers, when there was a scarcity of belladonna, these plants were
+regularly harvested by some enterprising herbalist.</p>
+
+<p>Such are a few of the delights of the Surrey undercliff; but alas! they
+are vanishing delights, for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> proximity to London has rendered all
+this district peculiarly liable to change. How could it be otherwise,
+when from the top of the ridge the dome of "smoky Paul's" is visible on
+a clear day, and a view of the Crystal Palace, "that dreadful C.P." as
+one has heard it called, can seldom be avoided. What havoc has been
+wrought in the Surrey hills by the advance of "civilization," may be
+learnt by anyone who studies the district with a sixty-year-old <i>Flora
+of Surrey</i> for guide. Between Merstham and Godstone, for instance, the
+hillsides, which were then free, open ground, have become in the saddest
+sense "residential," and the wildflowers have suffered in proportion.
+One may still find there the narrow-leaved everlasting pea, "hanging in
+festoons on thickets and copses," but other equally valued plants have
+disappeared or are disappearing. The marsh helleborine was once
+plentiful, it seems, in a swampy situation near Merstham; but when, by
+dint of careful trespassing and circumnavigation of barbed wire, I
+reached a place which corresponded exactly with that indicated in the
+<i>Flora</i>, not a single flower was to be seen. Probably some conscientious
+gardener had "transplanted" them.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to doubt that this process will be continued, and that
+every year more wild land will be broken up in the building of villas
+and in the making of gardens, with the inevitable shrubberies, gravel
+walks, flower-borders, and lawn-tennis courts. The trim parterre with
+its "detested calceolarias,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> as a great nature-lover has described
+them, will more and more be substituted for the rough banks that are the
+favourite haunts of marjoram and rock-rose. How can the owners of such a
+fairyland have the heart to sell it for such a purpose? In Omar's words:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I often wonder what the vintners buy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">One half so precious as the stuff they sell.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>A SANDY COMMON</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The common, overgrown with fern, . . .</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And fungus fruits of earth, regales the sense</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With luxury of unexpected sweets.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Cowper.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Stretched</span> between the North Downs and the weald, through the west part
+of Kent and the length of Surrey, runs the parallel range of greensand,
+which in a few places, as at Toys Hill and Leith Hill, equals or
+overtops its rival, but is elsewhere content to keep a lower level, as a
+region of high open commons and heaths. The light soil of this district
+shows a flora as different from that of the chalk hills on its north as
+of the wealden clays on its south; so that a botanist has here the
+choice of three kingdoms to explore.</p>
+
+<p>In natural beauty, these hills can hardly compare with the Downs. "For
+my part," wrote Gilbert White, "I think there is something peculiarly
+sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in
+preference to those of stone, which are rugged,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> broken, abrupt, and
+shapeless."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The same opinion was held by William Morris, who once
+declined to visit a friend of his (from whom I had the story) because he
+was living on just such a sandy common in west Surrey, where the
+formless and lumpish outline of the land was a pain to the artistic eye.
+For hygienic reasons, however, a sandy soil is reputed best to dwell
+upon; and I have heard a tale&mdash;told as a warning to those who are
+over-fastidious in their choice of a site&mdash;of a pious old gentleman who,
+being determined to settle only where he could be assured of two
+conditions, "a sandy soil and the pure gospel," finally died without
+either in a Bloomsbury hotel.</p>
+
+
+<p>The gorse and broom in spring, and in autumn the heather, are the marked
+features of the sandy Common: the foxglove, too, which has a strong
+distaste for lime, here often thrives in vast abundance, and makes a
+great splash of purple at the edge of the woods. But even apart from
+these more conspicuous plants, the "barren heath," as it is sometimes
+called, is well able to hold its own in a flower-lover's affection;
+though the absence of the finer orchids, and of some other flowers that
+pertain to the chalk, makes it perhaps less exciting as a field of
+adventure. In Crabbe's words:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And then how fine the herbage! Men may say</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A heath is barren: nothing is so gay.</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From May to September the Common is sprinkled with a bright succession
+of flowers&mdash;the slender <i>m&oelig;nchia</i>, akin to the campions and
+chickweeds, dove's-foot, crane's-bill; tormentil; heath bedstraw;
+speedwells of several species; autumnal harebell, and golden rod&mdash;each
+in turn playing its part. Among the aristocracy of this small people are
+the bird's-foot, an elfin creature, with tiny pinnate leaves and creamy
+crimson-veined blossoms; the modest milkwort, itself far from a rarity,
+yet so lovely that it shames us in our desire for the rare; and the
+trailing St. John's-wort, which we hail as the beauty of the family,
+until presently, meeting with its "upright" sister of the smooth
+heart-shaped leaves and the golden red-stained buds, we are forced to
+own that to her the name of <i>hypericum pulcrum</i> most rightly belongs.</p>
+
+<p>But the chief prize of the sandy heath is the Deptford pink, a rare
+annual of uncertain appearance, which bears the unmistakable stamp of
+nobility: it is a red-letter day for the flower-lover when he finds a
+small colony of these comely plants on some dry grassy margin. It was on
+a bank in Westerham Park that I first met with them; and there they
+reappeared, though in lessening numbers, in the two succeeding seasons.
+There was also a solitary flower, growing unpicked, strange to say,
+close beside one of the most frequented tracks that skirt the
+neighbouring Common.</p>
+
+<p>In the woods of beech and fir with which the hill is fringed there are
+more fungi than flowers; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> here too the "call of the wild" is felt,
+though to a feast of a less ethereal order. Fungus hunting is one of the
+best of sports, and a joy unknown to those who imagine that the orthodox
+"mushroom" of the market is the only wholesome species; and it is worthy
+of note that, whereas the true meadow mushroom is procurable during only
+a few weeks of the year, the fungus-eater can pursue his quarry during
+six or seven months, so great is the variety at his disposal. Among the
+delicacies that these woods produce are the red-fleshed mushroom, a
+brown-topped warty plant which becomes rufous when bruised; the
+gold-coloured chantarelle, often found growing in profusion along bushy
+paths and dingles; the big edible boletus, ignored in this country, but
+well appreciated on the Continent; and best of all, deserving indeed of
+its Latin name, the <i>agaricus deliciosus</i>, or orange-milk agaric, so
+called because its flesh, when broken, exudes an orange-coloured juice.
+It is easy to identify these and many other species with the help of a
+handbook, and it therefore seems strange that Englishmen, as compared
+with other races, should be prejudiced against the use of this valuable
+form of food. As for the country-folk who live within easy reach of such
+dainties, yet would rather starve than eat a "toadstool," what can one
+say of them?</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!</i><a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>From the south side of these fir-woods one formerly emerged, almost at a
+step, on to the escarpment that overlooks the weald, and at one of the
+finest viewpoints in Kent or Surrey; but the trees were felled during
+the war by Portuguese woodmen imported for that lamentable purpose. The
+spot is remembered by me for another reason; for there, in the years
+before the madness of Europe, used to sit almost daily a very aged man,
+whose home was on the hillside close by, and who was brought out, by his
+own wish, that he might spend his declining days not in moping by a
+kitchen fire, but in gazing across the wide expanse of weald, where all
+the landmarks were familiar to him, and of which he seemed never to
+weary. No more truly devout old age could have been desired; for there
+was no mistaking his genuine love for what Richard Jefferies called "the
+pageant of summer," the open-air panorama of the seasons, as observed
+from that heathery watch-tower. The only cloud on his horizon, so to
+speak, was the flock of aeroplanes which even then were beginning to mar
+the sky's calmness: of these he would sagely remark that "if man had
+been intended to fly, the Almighty would have given him wings." Had the
+old philosopher known to what hellish uses those engines were presently
+to be put, he might have wondered still more at such thwarting of the
+divine intent.</p>
+
+<p>Of sandpits there are several on the Common, and their disused borders
+are favourite haunts for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> wildflowers. The "least" cudweed, a slender
+wisp of a plant, is native there; the small-flowered crane's-bill, which
+is liable to be confounded with the dove's-foot; also one or two curious
+aliens, such as the Canadian fleabane, and the Norwegian <i>potentilla</i>,
+which resembles the common cinquefoil but has smaller flowers.</p>
+
+<p>But what most allured me to the spot was the sheep's scabious, or, as it
+is more prettily named in the Latin, <i>Jasione montana</i>, a delightful
+little plant, baffling alike in name, form, and colour. It is called a
+scabious, yet is not one. It is classed as a campanula, and seen through
+a lens is found to be not one but many campanulas, a number of tiny
+bells united in a single head. Then its hue&mdash;was there ever tint more
+elusive, more indefinable, than that of its many petals? Is it grey, or
+blue, or lavender, or lilac, or what? We only know that the flower is
+very beautiful as it blooms on sandy bank or roadside wall.</p>
+
+<p>At the side of a small plantation that borders the heath there thrives
+the alien small-flowered balsam, which, like some of its handsomer
+kinsfolk, seems to be quickly extending its range. Near the same spot I
+noticed several years ago, on a winter day, a patch of large soft
+pale-green leaves, which at a hasty glance I took to be those of the
+scented colt's-foot; but when I passed that way in the following spring
+I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow
+composite flowers, had risen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> from the mass of foliage. It proved to be
+the leopard's-bane, probably an "escape" from some neighbouring garden,
+but already well established and thriving like any native.</p>
+
+<p>But the Common does not consist wholly of dry ground; in one place, near
+the centre of the golf-course, there is a marshy depression, and in it a
+small pond where the water is a foot or two deep in winter, but in a hot
+summer almost disappears. Here a double discovery awaits the inquirer.
+The muddy pool is full of one of the rarer mints&mdash;pennyroyal&mdash;and with
+it grows the curious <i>helosciadium inundatum</i>, or "least marsh-wort," a
+small umbelliferous plant which has more the habit and appearance of a
+water crowfoot, its lower leaves being cut in fine hair-like segments.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do the fields and lanes that adjoin the heath lack their distinctive
+charm. The orpine, or "live-long," a handsome purple stonecrop, is not
+uncommon by the hedgeside; and the lovely <i>geranium striatum</i>, or
+striped crane's-bill, an occasional straggler from gardens, has made for
+itself a home; a hardy little adventurer it is, and one hopes it may yet
+win a place among British flowers, as many a less desirable immigrant
+has done. Poppies and corn-marigolds are a wonder of red and gold in the
+cultivated fields, the poppies as usual looking their best (if
+agriculturists will pardon the remark) when they have a crop of wheat
+for a background. The queer little knawel springs up among spurrey and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+parsley-piert; and in one locality is the lesser snapdragon, which
+always commands attention, partly for its uncommonness, and partly as a
+scion of the romantic race of <i>Antirrhinum</i>, which has a fascination not
+for children only, but for all lovers of the quaint.</p>
+
+<p>I have mentioned the golf-course. To many a Common the golfers are
+becoming what the builders are to the Downs&mdash;invaders who, by the
+trimming of grass and cutting down of bushes, are turning the natural
+into the artificial, and appropriating for the use of the few the
+possession of the many. To everyone his recreation ground; but are not
+the golf clubs getting rather more than their portion?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Milton.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I spoke</span> just now of a love of the quaint. Quaintness, though it may
+exist apart from beauty, is often associated with it, and, unlike
+grotesqueness, has a pleasurable interest for the spectator. In flowers
+it is usually suggested by some abnormality of shape, as in the
+snapdragon; less frequently, as in the fritillary, by a singular effect
+of colouring. Perhaps it is to the orchis group that one would most
+confidently apply the word; for they arrest attention not so much by
+their beauty as by their strangeness: one of them, indeed, the dwarf
+orchis, is undeniably beautiful, while another, the bird's-nest, is as
+ugly as a broom-rape; the others, if one tried to find a comprehensive
+epithet, might fairly be described as quaint.</p>
+
+<p>This quality in the orchids is not due solely to the odd likeness which
+some of them present to certain insects; for, as far as British species
+are concerned, the similarity, with a few exceptions, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> somewhat
+fanciful. If it be granted that the fly, the bee, and the spider orchis
+are justly named&mdash;though even in these the resemblance is not always
+recognized when pointed out&mdash;it is no less true that one looks in vain
+for the semblance of a "butterfly," or of a "frog," in the plants that
+are so entitled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the "man" in
+<i>aceras anthropophora</i>, or the "egg" in the white helleborine. But there
+is a charming quaintness in nearly all members of the family, owing
+largely to the peculiar structure of the lower lip of the corolla or the
+unusual length of the spur.</p>
+
+<p>The very name of the snapdragon is a proof of its hold upon the
+imagination: what mediæval romance and unfailing charm for children&mdash;and
+for adults&mdash;is conveyed in the word! The plant is at its best when clad
+in royal hue of purple; the white robe also has its glory; but the
+intermediate forms, striped and mottled, that are so fancied in gardens,
+are degenerates from a noble type. Seen on the walls of some ancient
+ruin, the snapdragon is a wonder and a delight; it is to be regretted
+that its place is now so often usurped by the red valerian, in
+comparison a mere upstart and pretender. The lesser snapdragon or
+calf's-snout, with the toadflaxes and fluellens, shares in the
+characteristic quaintness of its tribe.</p>
+
+<p>I will next instance the "perfoliates," plants not confined to any one
+order, but alike in having a stem which passes midway through the leaf
+or pair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> of leaves, a most engaging curiosity of structure. It is by
+this peculiarity that the yellow-wort, a gentian with glaucous foliage
+and blossoms like "patines of bright gold," mainly wins its popularity.
+But the quaintest of perfoliates is the hare's-ear, or "thorow-wax," as
+it used to be called, of which, as Gerarde wrote, "every branch grows
+thorow every leaf, making them like hollow cups or saucers." The
+thorow-wax owes its attractiveness to these singular glaucous leaves,
+which might be compared with an artist's palette; in some measure, also,
+to the sharp-pointed bracts by which the minute yellow flowers are
+enfolded&mdash;features that lend it a distinction which many much more
+beautiful plants do not possess.</p>
+
+<p>From no catalogue of quaint plants could the butterwort be omitted.
+"Mountain-sanicle" was its old name; and all climbers are acquainted
+with it, as it studs the wet rocks on the lower hillsides with pale
+green or yellowish leaves like starfish on a seashore. Its
+flowering-season is short, but full of interest, for lo! from its centre
+there rise in June one or two long and dainty stems, each bearing at its
+extremity a drooping purple flower that might at first glance be taken
+for a violet&mdash;a violet springing from a starfish!</p>
+
+<p>It is a long step from these conspicuous examples of the quaint to the
+small and modest moschatel, a hedge-flower which is likely to go
+unobserved unless it be made a special object of inquiry. <i>Adoxa</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> "the
+unknown to fame," is its Greek title; but if it has little claim to
+beauty in the ordinary sense, there is no slight charm in its delicate
+configuration, and in the whimsical arrangement of its five slender
+flower-heads&mdash;a terminal one, facing upwards, supported by four lateral
+ones, with a resemblance to the faces of a clock; whence its not
+inappropriate nickname, "the clock-tower." A fairy-like little belfry it
+is, whose chimes must be listened for, if at all, in the early spring,
+for it hastens to get its flowering finished before it is overgrown by
+the rank herbage of the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>There are many other flowers that might claim a place in this chapter,
+such as the sundews and the bladderworts; the mimulus and ground pine;
+the samphire and sea-rocket; the mullein and the teazle; and not least,
+the herb Paris, with that large quadruple "love-knot" into which its
+leaves are fashioned. But it must suffice to speak of one more.</p>
+
+<p>The fritillary, which shall close the list, is quaint to the point of
+being bizarre: its various names bear witness to the freakishness of its
+apparel&mdash;"guinea-flower," "turkey-hen," "chequered lily,"
+"snake's-head," and so forth. It was aptly described by Gerarde as
+"chequered most strangely. . . . Surpassing the curiousest painting that
+art can set down"; and in addition to this gorgeous colouring, the
+bell-like shape and heavy poise of its flower-heads contribute to the
+striking effect. From Gerarde to W. H. Hudson, who has portrayed it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+very beautifully in his <i>Book of a Naturalist</i>, the fritillary has been
+fortunate in its chroniclers; in its name, which it shares with a
+handsome family of butterflies, it can hardly be said to have been
+fortunate. For apart from the consideration that it is no great honour
+to a fine insect or flower to be likened to that instrument of human
+folly, a dicebox (<i>fritillus</i>), there is the practical difficulty of
+pronouncing the word as the dictionaries tell us it must be pronounced,
+with the accent on the first syllable; and not the dictionaries only,
+but the poets, as in Arnold's oft-quoted but very cacophonous line:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know what white, what purple fritillaries. . . .</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Why must so quaintly charming a flower be so barbarously named that
+one's jaw is well-nigh cracked in articulating it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A gaily chequered, heart-expanding view,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Far as the circling eye can shoot around,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Thomson.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> part of Hertfordshire where the Chiltern Hills, after curving
+proudly round from Tring to Dunstable, and almost rivalling the South
+Downs in shapeliness, die away at their north-east extremity, over
+Hitchin, to a bare expanse of ploughland, has the aspect of a broad
+plain swept by all winds of heaven, but is found, when explored, to be
+by no means devoid of charm. There, by a paradox, the very extent of the
+great hedgeless cornfields, reclaimed from the wild, gives the landscape
+a sort of wildness; it is in fact the district whence the Royston crow
+got its name, that hooded outlaw to whose survival a wide tract of open
+country was indispensable; and there is a pleasure in wandering over it
+which is unguessed by the traveller who rushes through in an express to
+Cambridge, and marvels at the tameness of the land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wildflowers of cultivated fields are as distinctive as those of
+heath or hillside. It would be difficult to name any two more beautiful
+"weeds" than the succory and the corn "blue-bottle"&mdash;the light blue and
+the dark blue; both have deservedly won their "blues"&mdash;and when to these
+is added the corn-cockle (<i>lychnis githago</i>), the rich veined purple of
+its petals set off by the long pointed green sepals and leaves, what
+handsomer trio could be wished? Unhappily these flowers have become much
+scarcer than they used to be; but in the Hertfordshire fields they are
+still frequently to be admired.</p>
+
+<p>The intensive culture of which we nowadays hear so much has this
+drawback for the botanist, that it is robbing him of some plants which
+he is very loth to lose. The most striking of these, perhaps, is that
+quaint "perfoliate" of which I have already spoken, the thorow-wax or
+hare's-ear, which in Gerarde's time was so plentiful in the wheatland as
+to be what he calls its "infirmitie": now it is decidedly rare. I have
+never been so fortunate (except in dreams) as to see it <i>in situ</i>; but I
+have for several years grown it from the seed of a specimen gathered by
+a friend in the cornfields near Baldock, and have always been impressed
+by its elegance. It is a delicate and fastidious plant, thriving only,
+as I have noticed, when the conditions are quite favourable: this may
+account for its steady diminution in many counties, while coarser and
+hardier weeds are legion.</p>
+
+<p>A more abiding "infirmitie" of some Hertfordshire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> cornfields is the
+crow-garlic, a wild onion whose pink umbels often surmount the crop in
+hundreds. Wishing to learn their local name, I once asked a farm-hand at
+Letchworth what he called the flowers. After gazing at them sternly, he
+said to me: "They're <i>not</i> flowers. They're a disease." I suggested that
+whatever their demerits might be from the point of view of an
+agriculturist, they must, strictly speaking, be regarded as flowers:
+this he grudgingly conceded; but as if regretting to have made so large
+an admission, he called after me, as I left him: "They're a disease."
+His pertinacity on this point reminded me of the reaffirmations of Old
+Kaspar, in Southey's poem, "After Blenheim":</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Nay, nay" ... quoth he,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"It was a famous victory."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The crow-garlic, as it happens, is rather a pretty plant; and the
+opprobrious name "disease" might be much more suitably assigned to the
+tall broom-rape, an unwholesome-looking parasite which lives rapaciously
+at the expense of the great knapweed, and is occasionally met with in
+the district of which I am speaking.</p>
+
+<p>An extremely local umbellifer, said to have been formerly so abundant
+about Baldock that pigs were turned out to fatten on its roots, is the
+bulbous caraway, which looks like a larger edition of the common
+earth-nut. None of the country-folk whom I questioned seemed to have any
+knowledge of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> uses; from which it would appear that its virtues,
+like those of many once famous herbs, have been forgotten in these
+sceptical modern times. It is well, perhaps, that <i>carum bulbocastanum</i>
+should be saved from the pigs; for in that unlovely region its white
+umbels serve to lighten up the monotony of the waysides.</p>
+
+<p>An unexpected discovery is always welcome. In a waste field, about a
+mile from Royston, I once found a tall branching plant with an abundance
+of yellow cruciferous flowers, which I should not have recognized but
+for the fact that a year or two previously my friend Edward Carpenter
+had sent me a specimen from Corsica. It was the woad, famous as the
+source of the blue dye with which the ancient Britons stained
+themselves. A mere "casual" in Hertfordshire, it is said to be
+established in a few chalk-quarries near Guildford and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far I have spoken of none but field flowers; but the district does
+not consist wholly of cultivated land, for even in that wilderness of
+tillage there are oases which have never felt the plough, and where the
+flora is of a different order. Therfield Heath, near Royston, is one of
+them, a grassy slope where the handsome purple milk-vetch is plentiful,
+and one may find, though in less abundance, the sprightly field
+fleawort, which seems more familiar as an ornament of the high chalk
+Downs.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are water springs wanting in the bare ploughlands. The little river
+Ivel, which leaps suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> to light near Baldock, and thence races
+northward to join the Bedfordshire Ouse, is a clear trout-stream by
+whose banks it is pleasant (whatever the trespass notices may threaten)
+to wander, and to watch the quick-glancing fish. At the hamlet of
+Radwell, in a moist copse, there is a patch of the rare monk's-hood, a
+poisonous flower of which later mention will be made. A joint tributary
+of the Ouse, and not less inviting, is the oddly named Hiz, which has
+its source on Oughton Common, a boggy flat near Hitchin, where both the
+butterwort and the grass of Parnassus are recorded as having grown and
+may perchance be growing still: as for the marsh orchis, one cannot
+cross the Common without seeing it.</p>
+
+<p>Then at Ickleford, a village on the banks of the Hiz, there is a pond
+which has been "occupied" (to use a military term) by the water-soldier,
+a stout aquatic which takes its name from the rigid swordlike leaves
+enclosing the three-petaled flowers. Peculiar to the eastern counties,
+this water-soldier is said to have been introduced at Ickleford over
+half a century ago; and there it now makes a fine array, having thriven
+wonderfully in spite of the worn-out pots and pans, and other refuse,
+for which, in Hertfordshire as elsewhere, the nearest pool or stream is
+thought a fit receptacle.</p>
+
+<p>A mile or two west of the source of the Hiz at Oughton Head, stands High
+Down, where begins or ends, according to the direction of the wayfarer,
+the northern escarpment of the Chilterns, at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> point crossed,
+recrossed, and crossed again, by the curiously indented boundary-line
+between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; and here on the steep front of
+the Pirton and Barton hills, in the one county or the other, may be seen
+in early spring the most beautiful of English anemones, the
+pasque-flower. On the few occasions when I have visited the place the
+summer was well advanced, and I was too late for that gorgeous flower; I
+had to content myself with the pyramidal orchis at the foot of the
+hills, and with great blossoming sheets of white candytuft in the fields
+above.</p>
+
+<p>For all these excursions there is no better starting-point than
+Letchworth, first of Garden Cities, which has sprung rapidly into being
+from what was until recent years an unadorned expanse of agricultural
+ground with Norton Common as its centre. This Common, originally a bit
+of wild fen, now almost surrounded by cottages and gardens, is to the
+nature-lover the most attractive feature of Letchworth; and though its
+flora has inevitably suffered from the inroads of the juvenile
+population, it can still show such plants as the marsh orchis, the small
+valerian, and the rare sulphur-coloured trefoil. It is watered by a
+diminutive river&mdash;the unceremonious might say ditch&mdash;known as the Pix,
+whose current, like that of the Cam, would almost seem to be determined
+by the direction of the wind, but is reputed to flow northward, to join
+its fleeter brethren, the Hiz and the Ivel, in their course to the
+Ouse.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I mention this rather forlorn stream, because it has sometimes occurred
+to me that, as an attempt is made to protect the wild birds on Norton
+Common, it might be expedient to lend a helping hand also to the
+flowers, or even to embellish the banks of the Pix (and so to re-invite
+the pixies to sport thereby), with a few hardy riverside plants, such as
+comfrey, tansy, hemp-agrimony, purple loosestrife, and yellow
+loosestrife, which were probably once native there, and would almost
+certainly flourish in such a spot. Is it legitimate thus to come to the
+rescue of wild nature? That is a question on which botanists are not
+quite agreed, and its consideration shall therefore be reserved for the
+following chapter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SOWER OF TARES</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An enemy hath done this.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> sowing of wildflowers is deprecated by some botanists, presumably as
+an interference with natural processes, an unauthorized attempt to play
+Providence in the vegetable kingdom; but the subject is one that seems
+to call for fuller discussion than it usually receives.</p>
+
+<p>We are told in the parable that the man who sowed tares among the wheat
+was an enemy; and certainly if there was an intention to injure the crop
+the expression was not too strong. But I have sometimes wondered whether
+the reprehensible act may not have been that of some botanical
+enthusiast, who, loving wildflowers not wisely but too well, was trying
+to save from extinction some rare weed of the cornfields which was
+disappearing under improved methods of culture.</p>
+
+<p>That this way of augmenting the flora of a country is nowadays not
+uncommon may be guessed from the frequent occurrence in botanical works
+of the comment "probably planted." Only a few pages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> back, I referred to
+the case of a pond in Hertfordshire now strongly held by a battalion of
+water-soldiers, the descendants of imported plants. There is evidence,
+too, that the practice has occasionally been indulged in by naturalists
+of great distinction, an amusing instance being that of the venerable
+and much-respected Gerarde, whose description of the peony as growing
+wild near Gravesend drew from his editor, Johnson, the following remark:
+"I have beene told that our author himselfe planted the peionie there,
+and afterwards seemed to finde it there by accident; and I doe believe
+it was so, because none before or since have ever seene or heard of it
+growing wilde in any part of this kingdome."<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Again, it is stated in Canon Vaughan's <i>Wild Flowers of Selborne</i> that
+Gilbert White himself "was once guilty of this misdemeanour." He sowed,
+not tares in wheat, but seeds of the grass of Parnassus in the Hampshire
+bogs, and sowed them according to his own statement unsuccessfully; it
+would appear, however, from what Canon Vaughan discovered that White was
+"more successful than he imagined." However that may be, the question
+that arises is whether a judicious extension of the range of wildflowers
+by the agency of man is really a thing to be censured. May not a
+flower-lover occasionally sow his "wild oats"?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the objections to such a practice are not
+retrospective, for if it be a misdemeanour, it is one that is condoned,
+perhaps hallowed, by time. For as it is impossible to draw a strict line
+between flowers that were accidentally imported or "escapes" from
+ancient gardens, and those that were planted deliberately, we wisely ask
+no questions in the case of old-established plants of foreign origin,
+but receive them into our flora as aliens that have become naturalized
+and are honourably classed as "denizens"; when they have once made good
+their tenure of the soil, it seems to matter little by what means they
+arrived. Thus, for example, the starry trefoil, which colonized the
+Shoreham shingles over a century ago, having apparently come as a
+stowaway on board some foreign ship, was not only tolerated but highly
+regarded by English botanists, and its recent destruction is felt to be
+a national loss. Would it have detracted from its value, if, as indeed
+may have happened, it had been purposely sown on the beach? On the
+contrary, it seems desirable that it should now be restored in that
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Such planting, of course, if done at all, should be done circumspectly,
+and on a fixed principle, not as an amusement for irresponsible persons
+or children. I know a flower-lover who, in a district where that
+beautiful St. John's-wort, the tutsan, was dwindling through
+depredations, or through some unexplained malady, carefully restored
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> balance in a score or so of suitable spots; and surely such action
+was much to be commended. But it is not desired that everyone should be
+planting tutsan everywhere; nor is there any danger of such a fashion
+arising, for there is much less tendency to plant than to pluck, to
+create than to destroy; and for that reason it would be folly to
+reintroduce any rare plant like the lady's slipper, where the collector
+would quickly reap what the enthusiast had sown.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the objection, it seems to me, to a proposal made some years
+ago by Edward Carpenter and others, that the diminishing numbers of the
+rarer butterflies should be reinforced by breeding. One would not
+willingly repeat the comedy of the angling craze, which solemnly stocks
+rivers with fish in order to pull them out again for pastime.</p>
+
+<p>Nor, because <i>some</i> planting of wildflowers may be unobjectionable, does
+it follow that all such enterprises are deserving of praise. A recent
+announcement that the Llanberis side of Snowdon, a locality rich in
+British mountain flowers, was being sown by Kew experts with the seeds
+of a number of "Alpines" from Switzerland, was likely to be more
+agreeable to rock-gardeners than to mountain-lovers, who have a regard
+for the distinctive character of Snowdon itself, and of its native
+flora. A country which has allowed its finest mountain to be exploited
+for commercial purposes, as Snowdon has been, is perhaps hardly in a
+position to protest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> against a Welsh hillside being planted with alien
+Swiss flowers, and even with Chinese rhododendrons; but nevertheless
+such schemes are thoroughly incongruous and barbaric. What sort of
+mountains do we desire to have? A piece of nature, or a nursery-garden?
+A Snowdon, or a Snowdon-cum-Kew?</p>
+
+<p>Be it understood, then, that the sowing of tares is by no means
+recommended as a practice: all that is here urged is that a sweeping
+condemnation of it is not warranted by the facts, inasmuch as
+circumstances, not dogma, must in each case decide whether it be
+blameworthy, or harmless, or beneficial. And apart from common sense,
+there is one natural safeguard which will prevent any undue growth of
+wildflowers, viz. the remarkable fastidiousness of the choicer plants in
+regard to soil and conditions: they will flourish where it suits them to
+flourish, not elsewhere. Certain auxiliaries, too, Nature has in the
+rabbits, water-voles, and other wild animals that are herbivorous in
+their tastes; for it is very interesting to observe how quickly the
+appearance of a strange plant will attract the attention of such
+gourmands.</p>
+
+<p>I was once the owner of a sloping meadow in which there were some
+springs; and thinking it would be pleasant to have a water-garden I had
+a small pond made, into which I introduced some aquatic plants, and
+among them, most accommodating of all, the water-violet, which grew
+lustily and sent up a number of its graceful stalks with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> whorls of pink
+blossoms. But just at that time a water-vole took up his residence
+there, and developing a remarkable fondness for a new savour in his
+salads, quickly made havoc of my <i>Hottonia palustris</i>. The neighbours
+assured me I must trap him; but to treat a fellow-vegetarian in that way
+was out of the question, especially as his confidence in me was so great
+that he would sit nibbling my favourite aquatic, which seemed also to be
+<i>his</i> favourite, while I stood within a few yards. It was clear that if
+the cult of the water-violet involved the killing of the water-vole it
+had got to be abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>In this way, among others, does Nature protect herself against an
+excessive interference on man's part with the distribution of
+wildflowers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>DALES OF DERBYSHIRE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Deeper and narrower grew the dell;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It seemed some mountain, rent and riven,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A channel for the stream had given,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So high the cliffs of limestone gray</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Scott.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> limestone Dales of Derbyshire are narrow and deep, and their
+streams, when visible (for they often lurk underground), are swift,
+strong, and of crystal clearness. The sides of the glens are in some
+places precipitous with bluffs and pinnacles of grey rock; in others,
+ridged and streaked with terraces of alternate crag and turf; above the
+cliffs there is often a tableland of bleak pastures divided by stone
+walls, as dreary a scene as could be imagined, when contrasted with the
+picturesque dales below.</p>
+
+<p>The flowers of these limestone valleys immediately recall those of the
+chalk: the marjoram, the basil, the great knapweed, the traveller's-joy,
+the rock-rose, the musk-thistle&mdash;these and many other familiar friends
+make us seem, at first sight, to be back in Sussex or Surrey. But in
+reality we are a hundred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and fifty miles nearer to the arctic zone, and
+that difference is clearly reflected in the flora; for when we look
+around, a number of new plants make their appearance, of which a dozen
+or more are very rare, or quite unknown, in the south. I once lived for
+several years on the hills above Chesterfield, a good way to the east of
+this limestone country; and to visit the nearest of the Dales there was
+a walk of seven miles, to and fro, across the intervening high moors
+that form the southern buttress of the Pennines. Stoney Middleton is far
+from being one of the pleasantest of Peakland villages; but such was the
+interest of its flora that the fourteen-mile trudge, and more, was often
+undertaken during the summer months.</p>
+
+<p>After traversing the great heathery moors devoted to the cult of the
+grouse, and descending from the rocky rampart of gritstone known as
+Curbar Edge, one crosses the valley of the Derwent; and here a pause may
+be made to notice a patch of sweet Cicely, one of the loveliest of the
+umbelliferous tribe. It is a charming sight, as it stands up tall in the
+sunshine, with its soft feathery cream-white masses of foliage and its
+fernlike leaflets; too fair and fragile, it would seem, for human hands,
+for it droops very soon if cut. Every part of it&mdash;stalk, leaves,
+flowers, and fruit&mdash;has the same aromatic fragrance (its local name is
+"anise"), and so gracious is it to sight, scent, and touch, that one
+longs to bathe one's senses in its luxuriance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Middleton Dale, naturally beautiful, but sadly deformed by lime-kilns,
+is famous for a cliff known as the Lover's Leap, from which an enamoured
+maiden is said to have thrown herself down. Had it been the love of
+flowers, rather than of man, that tempted her to that dizzy verge, there
+would have been no cause for surprise; for there are many alluring
+plants on the ledges of the scarp, including a brilliant show of wild
+wallflowers. In May and June there may be found along the northern side
+of the dale the yellow petals of the spring cinquefoil (<i>potentilla
+verna</i>), a gem of a flower, which, in Mr. Reginald Farrer's words,
+"clings to the white cliff-face, and from far off you see a splash of
+gold on the greyness." A month later the equally attractive Nottingham
+catch-fly (<i>silene nutans</i>) will be abundant on the rocks; a plant of
+nocturnal habits which expands its petals and becomes fragrant in the
+evening, but "nods," as its Latin name avows, in the daytime, when it
+wears a sleepy and somewhat dissipated look, like a wassailer&mdash;a white
+campion that has been "on spree." By night its beauty is beyond cavil.</p>
+
+<p>On the lower slopes is a colony of a still stranger-looking flower, the
+woolly-headed thistle, whose involucre is so bulky, and its scales so
+densely wrapped in white down, that it has an almost grotesque
+appearance, as of a thistle with "swelled head." It is, however, a very
+handsome plant; and when growing in vast numbers, as I have seen it in
+one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> of its special haunts, near Wychwood Forest, in Oxfordshire, it
+makes a glorious spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three species of saxifrages&mdash;the rue-leaved, the meadow, and the
+mossy&mdash;that thrive along the bottom of the dale, the two former are
+southern as well as northern flowers; but the presence of the mossy
+saxifrage is a sign that we are in a mountainous region, and as such it
+is always welcome. With these grows the graceful vernal sandwort,
+another flower of the hills, and so often the companion of saxifrages
+that it is naturally associated with them in the mind.</p>
+
+<p>But Middleton Dale, the nearest to my starting-point, and therefore the
+most frequently visited by me, is much surpassed in floral wealth by the
+long valley of the Wye, which in its course from Buxton to Bakewell
+bears the names successively of Wye Dale, Chee Dale, Miller's Dale, and
+Monsal Dale. In one or another of these four glens nearly all the rarer
+limestone flowers have their station. You may find, for instance, three
+very local crucifers: the two whitlow-grasses, <i>draba incana</i> and <i>draba
+muralis</i>, remarkable only as being scarce in other parts of the kingdom;
+and the really beautiful little <i>Hutchinsia</i>, with its tiny white
+blossoms and finely cut pinnate leaves. Jacob's-ladder, a handsome blue
+flower, very uncommon in a wild state, is also native on the bluffs and
+slopes in Chee Dale and elsewhere: in fact a stroll along almost any of
+the limestone escarpments will bring new treasures to sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the flower which I best love is one which grows by the
+streamside&mdash;in Wye Dale it is in profusion&mdash;the modest water-avens,
+often strangely undervalued by writers who describe it as "dingy." Thus
+in Delamer's <i>The Flower Garden</i> it is stated that this avens "is more
+remarkable for having been one of the favourites, the whims, the
+caprices of the great Linnæus, than for anything else: it is hard to say
+what, in a British meadow-weed, could so take the fancy of the Master."
+Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre
+goes on to say that "it is impossible to account, logically, for
+attachments and sympathies."</p>
+
+<p>Logic, truly, would be out of place in such a connection; but it is not
+difficult to understand Linnæus's feelings towards the water-avens.
+There is a rare beauty in the droop of its bell-like head, and in its
+soft and subdued tints&mdash;the deep rufous brown of the long sepals,
+through which peep the silky petals in hues that range from creamy white
+to vinous red, and all steeped in a quiet radiance as of some old
+stained glass. I must own to thinking it the most tenderly beautiful of
+all English wildflowers. The hybrid between the water-avens and the
+common avens is occasionally found by the Wye: one which I saw in
+Miller's Dale had green sepals and petals of pale yellow.</p>
+
+<p>The Alpine penny-cress (<i>thlaspi alpestre</i>), a crucifer native on
+limestone rocks, may be seen on the High<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> Tor at Matlock, where it grows
+with the vernal sandwort on débris at the mouth of caves; a graceful
+little plant with white flowers and a smooth unbranched stem so closely
+clasped by the narrow leaves as to give it the look of a perfoliate.</p>
+
+<p>One other limestone district shall be mentioned; the hills round
+Castleton. Cave Dale, approached by a narrow gorge close to the village,
+is well worth the flower-lover's attention; for bleak and bare as it is,
+its slippery sides harbour some interesting plants, such as the mountain
+rue (<i>thalictrum minus</i>), and the scurvy-grass (<i>cochlearia alpina</i>),
+both in considerable quantity. In the Winnatts, too, the steep ravine
+which overhangs the road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith, one may
+find Jacob's-ladder and other rarities on the rocks; and the gorgeous
+mountain pansy (<i>viola lutea</i>) is not far distant on the upland heaths
+and pastures.</p>
+
+<p>The list is far from being exhausted; but enough has been said to show
+that there is no lack of entertainment among these limestone dales. To
+enter one of them, after crossing the moorland from the dreary coal
+district of east Derbyshire, is like stepping from penury to plenty,
+from wilderness to paradise: there is a change of colouring that
+instantly attracts the eye. Even in early spring the little shining
+crane's-bill decks the walls and lower rocks with its rose-petaled
+flowers; and at midsummer the more showy stonecrop flings a veritable
+cloth of gold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> over the crags and lawns. Few localities present so many
+charming flowers in so limited a space.</p>
+
+<p>And now let us turn from the limestone valleys to those of the millstone
+grit.</p>
+
+<p>The controversy as to which part of Derbyshire best deserves the name of
+"The Peak" has always seemed a vain one, not merely because there is no
+peak in the county at all, but because no connoisseur can doubt for a
+moment that the district which alone has the true characteristics of a
+mountain is the great triangular plateau of gritstone known as
+Kinderscout. Less beautiful than the limestone dales, with their
+beetling crags and wealth of flowers, the wilder region surrounding "the
+Scout" has the advantage of being a real bit of mountain scenery, topped
+as it is with black "tors" and "towers" that rise out of the heather,
+and flanked with rocky "edges" from which its steep "cloughs" descend
+into the valleys below.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, this great rocky tableland has of late years become
+almost a <i>terra incognita</i> to the nature-lover, as a result of the
+agreement which was made, after prolonged controversy, between the Peak
+District Society and the grouse-shooting landlords, inasmuch as, while
+permitting the traveller to skirt the shoulders of the hill, it excluded
+him wholly from its summit.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of the heather, the bilberry, and a few kindred
+species, the plants of the gritstone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> hills are sparse; but there is
+one, the cloudberry&mdash;so-called, according to Gerarde's rather
+magniloquent description, because "it groweth naturally upon the tops of
+high mountains ... where the clouds are lower than the tops of the same
+all winter long"&mdash;which well repays a pilgrimage. It is a prostrate and
+spineless bramble (<i>rubus chamæmorus</i>), highly valued in northern
+countries for its rich orange-coloured fruit. It grows thickly on the
+ground, making a dark-green patch in marked contrast to the coarse
+herbage; and towards the end of June one may see a profusion of the
+large white blossoms and a few early formed berries at the same time.
+There is a good-sized plot of it near the summit of the pass that
+crosses the shoulder of Kinderscout from Edale Head.</p>
+
+<p>But of the plants that grow on the Scout itself I am unable to speak;
+for my only visit to it&mdash;not reckoning an unsuccessful attempt when I
+was turned back by a keeper&mdash;took place in the depth of a very snowy
+winter. It was on the afternoon of a frosty January day, when the sun
+was already low, that in the company of my friend Bertram Lloyd, and
+armed with a passport, in the form of a letter of permission, given us
+by the courtesy of one of the owners of the shooting, I climbed from
+Edale, through the region of right-of-way into that of flagrant
+trespass. We felt an unusual sense of legality, as we passed a
+weather-beaten notice-board, with a half-obliterated threat that
+trespassers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> would be "&mdash;cuted," whether executed, electrocuted, or
+prosecuted was left to the imagination of the offender; and I think the
+strangeness of his position was rather embarrassing to my companion, who
+is such a confirmed trespasser that he feels as if something must be
+amiss unless there is a gamekeeper to be reckoned with&mdash;like the
+mountain ram, in Thompson-Seton's story, who was so accustomed to be
+hunted that he became moody and restless when his pursuer was not in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>But, at the time of our visit, no passport was demanded; for the
+keepers, like the grouse themselves, appeared to have deserted the
+heights for the valleys. Indeed, hardly any life at all was to be seen,
+with the exception of a grey mountain hare, couched upon a stack of
+rock, who regarded us with a mild and curious eye as we passed some two
+hundred feet above him, and seemed to be satisfied that we were
+harmless. Nor was this lack of life surprising, for a more desolate
+scene could hardly be imagined&mdash;a great snow-clad "moss," intersected by
+deep ruts, which, being choked with snow, had somewhat of the appearance
+of crevasses, and punctuated here and there with the black masonry of
+the tors. From the highest point that we reached, marked in the ordnance
+map as 2,088 feet, there was a wonderful sunset view, though the
+Manchester district that lies to the west of the Scout was hidden in
+lurid fog. It is said that Snowdon, a hundred miles distant, has been
+seen from this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> point. It was certainly not visible upon the occasion to
+which I refer.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to visit this high mountain plateau, lying as it does
+at about an equal distance from Manchester and Sheffield, without
+feeling that what is now a private grouse-moor must, before many years
+have passed, become a nationalized park or "reservation"&mdash;a playground
+for the dwellers in the great Midland cities, and a sanctuary for wild
+animals and plants.</p>
+
+<p>The time will assuredly come when the sport of the few will have to give
+way to the health and recreation of the many.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>NO THOROUGHFARE!</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trespassers will be prosecuted.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> subject of trespassing mentioned in the preceding chapter, has a
+very close and personal interest for the adventurous flower-lover; for
+of all incentives to ignore the familiar notice-board with its hackneyed
+words of warning, none perhaps is more potent than the possibility that
+some rare and long-sought wildflower is to be found on the forbidden
+land. The appeal is one that no explorer can resist. If "stout Cortez"
+himself, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific, had seen that
+ocean labelled as "strictly private and preserved," could he have
+desisted from his quest?</p>
+
+<p>There is moreover a good deal to be said in extenuation of trespassing
+as a summer recreation; and if landlords go on at their present rate, in
+closing footpaths and excluding the public from green fields and
+hedgerows, trespassing will perhaps establish itself as one of our
+recognized national diversions. Hitherto, it must be confessed, it has
+remained to some extent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> in disrepute; doubtless, through its being so
+largely indulged in by poachers and other evil-doers, who have given a
+bad name to a practice which in itself is innocent and blameless enough.
+Most people, especially landlords and gamekeepers, have a fixed belief
+that a trespasser's purpose must be a lawless and mischievous one. Why
+so? Is it not possible that some trespassers may have other objects than
+to steal pheasants' eggs or snare rabbits? If huntsmen when following
+the hounds are permitted, not only to trespass, but to damage crops and
+fences, why should the naturalist be molested when harmlessly following
+his own inclinations in choice of a country ramble. Is the pursuit of
+the fox a surer proof of honest intentions than the pursuit of natural
+history? It appears that some landowners think so. "Trespassers will be
+prosecuted," say the notices that everywhere stare us in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Was there ever such a lying legend? Trespassers will <i>not</i> be
+prosecuted, for the sufficient reason that in English law trespassing is
+not an offence. Of course, if any injury be done to property, the owner
+can sue for damages, but a harmless trespasser can only be requested to
+depart, though, if he be ill-advised enough to refuse to go, he may be
+forcibly ejected. We see, therefore, that the threatened "prosecution"
+of trespassers is in reality merely a <i>brutum fulmen</i> launched by
+landlords at a too credulous public, a pious fraud which has been far
+more efficacious than such kindred notices as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> "Beware the dog," or
+"Beware the bull," though these, too, have done good service in their
+time. Trespassers will not be prosecuted, provided that they do no sort
+of damage, and that if their presence is objected to they politely
+retire. With these slight precautions and limitations, a trespasser may
+go where he will, and enjoy the study of Nature in her most secluded and
+"strictly private" recesses. He thus himself becomes, in one sense, a
+lord of the soil; but his domain is far more extensive and unencumbered
+than that of any actual landlord. He enjoys all that is best in park,
+woodland, or mountain; and if he is "warned off" one estate he can
+afford to smile at the prohibition, since many other regions are open to
+him, and he can confidently look forward to a visit to fresh woods and
+pastures new on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of these rambles the trespasser will probably, like
+Ulysses, have some curious experiences of men and of notice-boards. It
+is very instructive to observe the various types of the landlord class,
+and their different methods of treating the intruder whom they meet on
+their fields. There is the indignant landlord, who can scarcely conceal
+his wrath at the astounding audacity of one who is deliberately crossing
+his land without having come "on business." There is the despairing
+landlord, who has been so broken by previous invasions that he is now
+content with a shrug of the shoulders and a remark that the place is
+"quite private, you know." There is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> courteous landlord, who
+politely assumes that you have lost your way, and naively offers to
+conduct you to the high-road by the shortest cut; and there is the
+mildly ironical, who, as in a case which I remember on a Surrey
+hillside, remarks as he passes you: "There goes my heather."</p>
+
+<p>I have heard it said that one can sometimes divine the character of a
+landlord from the wording of his notice-boards, and I believe from my
+own experiences that there is truth in the idea. Certainly the
+notice-board is the landlord's favourite method of defending the privacy
+of his estate, and for obvious reasons; for not only is it the least
+troublesome and expensive way of conveying the desired warning to
+would-be trespassers, but the salutary fiction regarding the
+"prosecution" of offenders is thus publicly and permanently impressed on
+the agricultural mind. There is not such entire uniformity in the
+wording of notice-boards as might be supposed. Of course by far the
+commonest form is the well-known "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be
+prosecuted as the law directs," in which the unconscious irony contained
+in the last four words has always struck me as especially delightful. To
+this is often added the words "and all dogs shot," in which the
+experienced trespasser will detect signs of a certain roughness and
+inhumanity of temperament on the part of the owner. More original forms
+of expression are by no means uncommon. Sometimes the warning is
+emphasized by the bold statement, indicating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> the possession by the
+landlord of humorous or imaginative faculties, that "the police have
+orders to watch." Sometimes, but more rarely, the personal element is
+boldly introduced, as in the assertion, which might formerly be seen on
+a notice-board in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Lake
+District, "This is my land. Trespassers, etc." In some cases the wording
+has evidently been left to the care of subordinates, and hence result
+some curiosities of literary composition. "Private. Beware of dogs," is
+an instance of this kind, in which the ambiguity of the allusion to
+dogs, whether those of the landlord or the trespasser, seems almost
+oracular. In these and other ways a certain zest is lent to the
+excursions or rather the <i>in</i>cursions, of the trespasser, which lifts
+them above the level of ordinary walking exercise.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of wealthy landowners, the duty of warning off the
+trespasser devolves on gamekeepers, who, being less emotional than their
+employers, are a far less interesting study. Stolid and furry, and
+apparently endowed with only the animal instincts of the victims whom
+they delight in tracking and trapping, they are by far the least
+intelligent people whom the trespasser encounters; they are, in fact, no
+better than breathing and walking notice-boards, with the disadvantage
+that they cannot be so absolutely disregarded. It is unwise to argue
+with them; for reason is at a discount in such encounters and there is
+the possibility, in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> districts, of their having recourse to
+personal violence, in the knowledge that if the matter should come
+before local magistrates the keeper's word would be honoured in
+preference to that of the trespasser. There is a sanctity in the word
+"Preserve."</p>
+
+<p>An experience of this sort actually befell a friend of mine, who himself
+narrated it in print. A devoted botanist and nature-lover, he was twice
+in the same day found trespassing by a gigantic gamekeeper, who, on the
+second occasion, ended all parley in the manner described in the
+following "Mystical Ballad," wherein the writer has ventured somewhat to
+idealize the circumstances, though the story is based on the facts.</p>
+
+<h3>PRESERVED.</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Poet through a haunted wood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Roamed fearless and serene,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor flinched when on his path there stood</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A Form in Velveteen.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My footsteps shall not swerve."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"You're trespassing," the Vision said:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"This place is a preserve."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"How so? Is some dark secret here</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Preserved? some tale of shame?"</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Spectre scowled, but answered clear:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"What we preserve is Game."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet still the Poet's heart was nerved</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With Phantoms to dispute:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Then tell me, why is Game preserved?"</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Goblin yelled: "To shoot."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"But Game that's shot is Game destroyed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not Game preserved, I ween."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It seemed such argument annoyed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That Form in Velveteen;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For swift It gripped him, as he spake,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And, making light the load,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Upheaved, and flung him from the brake</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Into the King's high-road.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And as that Bard, still arguing hard,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">High o'er the palings flew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He vows he heard this ghostly word:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"We're not preserving <i>you</i>."</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%; Margin-left: 3em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Long time he lay on that highway,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dazed by so weird a fall;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Then rose and cried, as home he hied:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"The Lord preserve us all!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I have often thought it was an error on the part of the trespassing poet
+not to explain to his assailant that he was a botanist; for "botanist,"
+as I can testify, is a blessed word which has a soothing effect upon
+many of the most irascible landowners or their satellites. Personally I
+never presume to call myself botanist, except when I am found
+trespassing, on which occasions I have rarely known it to fail. I recall
+a Saturday afternoon when, as I was rambling in a Derbyshire dale with
+Bertram Lloyd, and admiring the flowers, we were accosted by the owner
+in person, who inquired with a sort of suppressed fury whether we knew
+that we were on his estate. We said we were botanists, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> effect
+was magical; in less than a minute we were courteously permitted to go
+where we would and stay as long as we liked.</p>
+
+<p>For botany is regarded as a scientific study; and even sportsmen do not
+like to incur the reproach of being enemies to science. Their better
+feelings may be conveyed in a familiar Virgilian line:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora P&oelig;ni.</i><a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where the most beautiful wildflowers grow, there man's</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">spirit is fed.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Thoreau</span>.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A limestone</span> soil is everywhere rich in flowers&mdash;we have seen what the
+midland dales can produce&mdash;but it is especially so in the close
+neighbourhood of the sea. Two instances suggest themselves; one from a
+Carnarvonshire promontory, the Orme's Head; the other from Arnside
+Knott, in Westmorland.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty years ago the Great Orme was a wild and picturesque headland,
+girdled by a footpath which made a circuit of the beetling cliffs, and
+crossed by a few other tracks leading to the telegraph station at the
+summit, St. Tudno's Church, and elsewhere; but in most respects still in
+a primitive and unimpaired condition. I knew almost every yard of it as
+a boy; and I remember, among other attractions, a hermit who lived in a
+cave, and better still a wild cat&mdash;probably a fugitive from some
+Llandudno lodging-house&mdash;who had her home in a stack of rocks on the
+western side of the Head. On the western shore of the isthmus there was
+at that time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> only one house; it belonged to Dean Liddell, famous as
+joint author of the Greek dictionary distressfully known to generations
+of students as <i>Liddell and Scott.</i></p>
+
+<p>But now, owing to the "development" of Llandudno, this once beautiful
+foreland has become a place almost of horror, vulgarized by trams,
+motor-roads, golf-links, and all the appurtenances of "civilization;"
+and were it not for the wildflowers, it might well be shunned by those
+who knew it in old days. Flowers, however, are very tenacious of their
+established haunts, and the remark made in Mr. J. E. Griffith's <i>Flora
+of Carnarvonshire</i> still holds good, that "the flora of this district is
+quite unique, in consequence of the number of species found here, and
+the rarity of many of them." The luxuriance of the flowers is indeed a
+sight which can almost make one forget the "improvements" that have
+ruined the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>Among the plants inhabiting the rocky banks above the shore are the blue
+vernal squill, the sea stork's-bill, sweet alyssum, hound's-tongue,
+hemlock, henbane, mullein, and tree-mallow: to these may be added what
+constitutes a herb-garden readymade&mdash;fennel, wormwood, vervain, white
+horehound, wild sage, succory, and Alexanders. On the higher cliffs are
+the curious samphire, pink thrift, white scurvy-grass, and great tufts
+of sea-cabbage, now rarer and more local than formerly, but here waving
+its pale yellow pennons in abundance. Most charm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>ing of all, the
+brilliant blood-red crane's-bill, together with two kinds of rock-rose
+(the hoary dwarf species as well as the common one), makes rich splashes
+of colour on the grey limestone ledges. A little back from the sea,
+among the bluffs that overhang the town, you may light upon the
+sleepy-looking catch-fly (<i>silene nutans</i>); the tiny Hutchinsia; and in
+one or two places the shrub cotoneaster, which is said to be native only
+upon the Great Orme. I have, however, seen it growing apparently wild at
+Capel Curig, and at a greater distance from houses than in its Llandudno
+station.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it only the Great Orme that shows this floral wealth: the Little
+Orme has the rare Welsh stonecrop (<i>sedum Forsterianum</i>); and on another
+height in the same district, the small circular hill known as Deganwy
+Rocks, there is a profusion of flowers. When I revisited it a few years
+ago, not having set foot on it for nearly half a century, I found that
+the villas of Deganwy had crept up almost to the base of the rocks, and
+on another side there was&mdash;still worse&mdash;a camp of German prisoners, with
+armed sentries supervising their labours; yet even there, close above
+such scenes, were growing plants which might mark a memorable day in the
+annals of a flower-lover, notably the maiden pink and the
+milk-thistle&mdash;the "holy" thistle, as it is not inaptly called. The
+pinks, a lovely band, were sprinkled along the turf at the foot of the
+rocks; the thistles were almost at the top; between them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> on a stony
+ledge nestled a quantity of viper's bugloss, and with it some borage,
+two kindred plants which I had never before seen in company.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the members of the Borage group are interesting&mdash;lungwort,
+alkanet, forget-me-not, hound's-tongue, and bugloss&mdash;but the borage
+itself, a roadside weed in South Europe, and in this country merely an
+immigrant and "casual," is to me the most precious of all. My earliest
+recollections of it, I must own, are as an ingredient of claret-cup at
+Cambridge, its silver-grey stems floating in the wine with a pleasant
+roughness to the lip; but in those unregenerate days we did not know the
+real virtue of the herb, famous from old time, as Gerarde says, for its
+power "to exhilarate and make the mind glad, to comfort the heart, and
+for driving away of sorrow." And certainly, in another and better use,
+it <i>does</i> comfort the heart and drive sorrow away; for its "gallant blew
+flowers" are of all blues the loveliest, and the black anthers give it a
+peculiarly poignant look which reminds one somehow of the wistfulness of
+a Gainsborough portrait. In the list of my best-beloved flowers it ranks
+among the highest.</p>
+
+<p>Looking north-east from the Orme's Head, one may see on a clear day,
+across some sixty miles of water, the limestone hills of Westmorland,
+reckoned as part of Lakeland, but geologically, botanically, and in
+general character a quite separate district. Arnside Knott, a bluff
+overlooking the estuary of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> the river Kent where it widens into
+Morecambe Bay, is the presiding genius of a tract of shore and forest to
+which the name of "Lily-land" has been given by Mr. J. A. Barnes in a
+sketch of Arnside, and which he describes as "a perfect paradise of
+wildflowers." Let us suppose ourselves transported thither, and see how
+the claim holds good.</p>
+
+<p>The lily of the valley is one of those favoured plants which are
+everywhere highly esteemed; even the man who in general cares but little
+for wildflowers takes this one to his heart, or, what is worse, to his
+garden. I have already quoted Mr. C. A. Johns's queer appreciation of
+this native British wildflower as "a universally admired garden plant."
+On the wooded hill known as Arnside Park the "May lily," as it used to
+be called (and here it is certainly not "of the valley"), covers many
+acres of ground, and justifies the title "Lily-land" as applied to the
+Arnside neighbourhood. What I found still more interesting was an almost
+equal abundance of the stone bramble (<i>rubus saxatilis</i>), which grows
+intermixed with the lilies over a large portion of the wood.</p>
+
+<p>On these Westmorland Cliffs, as in those of Carnarvonshire, the
+blood-red crane's-bill is conspicuous, but it is much less plentiful,
+nor are the outstanding flowers of the two localities the same. One of
+the commonest at Arnside is the tall ploughman's spikenard, known
+locally as "frankincense": and on the lawns that skirt the Knott one
+often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> sees the mountain-cudweed or "cat's-foot," the gromwell or "grey
+millet," and the beautiful little dwarf orchis. The district is rather
+rich in orchids; among others, I found the rare narrow-leaved
+helleborine (<i>cephalanthera ensifolia</i>) in the Arnside woods. The deadly
+nightshade is frequent; so, too, is the four-leaved herb-Paris, which a
+resident described to me as being here "almost a weed." But there are
+two other flowers that demand more special mention.</p>
+
+<p>In a lane near Arnside Tower, a ruin that lies below the Knott on its
+inland side, there is a considerable growth of green hellebore,
+apparently at the very spot where its presence was recorded two
+centuries ago. Though not a very rare plant, it is extremely local; and
+owing to its strongly marked features, the large palmate leaves and pale
+green flowers, is not likely to go unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>But the rarest of Arnside flowers is, or was, another poisonous plant of
+the <i>ranunculus</i> order, the baneberry, for which the writer of
+"Lily-land," as he tells us, "hunted for years without success; till its
+exact locality was at last revealed to me by one who knew, in a
+situation so obvious that I felt like a man who has hunted through every
+room in the house for the spectacles on his own nose." Years later, on
+my certifying that I was not a knight of the trowel, Mr. Barnes was so
+kind as to confide to me this same secret that had been kept hidden from
+the uninitiate; but I found that the small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> plantation which had been
+the home of the baneberry, almost within Arnside itself, had recently
+been cut down, and though a few of the plants were still growing along
+the side of the field, they had ceased to flower, and possibly by this
+time they have ceased to exist. Even as it was, I felt myself fortunate
+to have seen the baneberry in one of its few native haunts. The pale
+green deeply cut leaves are much handsomer than those of its relatives
+the hellebore and the monk's-hood. Its raceme of white flowers and its
+black berries are also known to me; but alas, only in a garden.</p>
+
+<p>Where flowers are concerned, there is little truth in the saying that
+"comparisons are odious"; on the contrary it is both pleasant and
+profitable to compare not only plant with plant, but the flora of one
+fertile district with that of another. The natural scenery of Arnside is
+yet unspoilt, and for that reason it now offers greater attractions to
+the nature-lover than the ruined charms of Llandudno; but if he were
+asked, for botanical reasons only, to choose between a visit to the Orme
+and a visit to the Knott, the decision might be a less easy one. "How
+happy could I be with either!" would probably be his thought.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It [rose-root] groweth very plentifully in the north of
+England, especially in a place called Ingleborough Fels.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 22em;"><span class="smcap">Gerarde.</span></span><br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a tale by Herman Melville which deals with the strangeness of a
+first meeting between the inmates of two houses which face each other,
+far and high away, on opposite mountain ranges, and yet, though daily
+visible, have remained for years as mutually unknown as if they belonged
+to different worlds. It was with this story in my mind that I approached
+for the first time the moorland mass of Ingleborough, long familiar as
+seen from the Lake mountains, a square-topped height on the horizon to
+the south-east, but hitherto unvisited by me owing to the more imperious
+claims of the Great Gable and Scafell. But now, at last, I found myself
+on pilgrimage to Ingleborough; the impulse, long delayed, had seized me
+to stand on the summit of the Yorkshire fell, and, looking
+north-westward, to see the scene reversed.</p>
+
+<p>Another of Ingleborough's attractions was that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> it is the home of
+certain scarce and beautiful flowers, as has been pointed out in Mr.
+Reginald Farrer's interesting books on Alpine plants. Such exceptional
+rarities as the baneberry (<i>actæa spicata</i>), which grows among rocky
+crevices high up on the fell&mdash;not to mention the <i>arenaria gothica</i>,
+choicest of the sandworts&mdash;the mere visitor can hardly hope to discover;
+but there are other and less infrequent treasures upon the hill, beyond
+which my ambition did not aspire.</p>
+
+<p>As I ascended the barren marshy slopes that form the eastern flank, I
+realized once again how much more the labour of an ascent depends upon
+the character of the ground than upon the actual height to be scaled.
+Ingleborough is under 2,400 feet; yet it is far more toilsome to climb
+than many a rocky peak in Wales or Cumberland that rises hundreds of
+feet higher, and it is a relief at length to get a firm foothold on the
+rocks of millstone grit which form the summit. Thence, from the edges
+which drop sharply from the flat top, one looks out on the somewhat
+desolate fells stretching away on three sides&mdash;Pen-y-ghent to the east,
+Whernside to the north, and to the south the more distant forest of
+Pendle&mdash;but westward there is the gleam of sand or water in Morecambe
+Bay, and the eye hastens to greet the dim but ever glorious forms of the
+Lakeland mountains.</p>
+
+<p>In the affections of the mountain-lover Ingleborough can never be the
+rival of one of these; indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> in the strict sense, it is not a
+mountain at all, but a high moor built on a base of limestone with a cap
+of grit. Still, there is grandeur in the steep scarps that guard its
+central stronghold; and its dark summit, when viewed from a distance
+crowning the successive tiers of grey terraces, has a strength and
+wildness of its own, and even suggests at points a likeness to the
+massive tower of the Great Gable. To one looking down from the topmost
+edges on the scattered piles of limestone below, the effect is very
+curious. You see, perhaps, a mile or two distant, what looks at first
+sight like a flock of sheep at pasture, but is soon discovered to be a
+stone flock which has no mortal shepherd. In other parts are wide white
+plateaux which, when visited, turn out to be a wilderness of low flat
+rocks, everywhere weather-worn and water-worn, scooped and scalloped
+into cells and basins, and so intersected by channels filled with ferns
+and grasses that one has to walk warily over it as over a reef at low
+tide.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the flowers. At the summit were mossy saxifrage and
+vernal sandwort; and on the cliffs just below, to the western side, the
+big mountain stonecrop, rose-root, not unhandsome with its yellow
+blossoms, flourished in some abundance, even as it did when Gerarde
+wrote of it, nearly three hundred years ago. The purple saxifrage, an
+early spring flower, is also found on these rocks, but at the time when
+I visited the spot, in late June, its blossoming season was over, and
+nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> was visible but the leaves. There was little else but some
+hawkweeds; I turned my attention, therefore, to the flowers of the lower
+slopes.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more delightful, in descending a mountain, than to
+follow the leading of some rapid beck from its very source to the
+valley; and it is rather disconcerting, in these limestone regions, that
+the cavernous nature of the ground should make the presence of the
+streams so intermittent, and that one's chosen companion should not
+unfrequently disappear, just when his value is most appreciated, into
+some "gaping gill" or pot-hole.</p>
+
+<p>It is said of Walt Whitman that sometimes when a pilgrim was privileged
+to walk with him, and was perhaps thinking that their acquaintance was
+ripening to friendship, the good grey poet, with a curt nod and a
+careless "good-bye," would turn off abruptly and be gone. Even so it is
+with these wayward streams that course down the sides of Ingleborough.
+Just when one is on the best of terms with them, they vanish and are no
+more.</p>
+
+<p>But with the bird's-eye primrose tinging hillsides and hollows with its
+tender hue of pink, no other companionship was needed. A mountain
+flower, it is the fairest of all the <i>Primulaceæ</i>, that band of fair
+sisters to which it belongs&mdash;primrose, cowslip, pimpernel, loosestrife,
+and money-wort&mdash;all beautiful and all favourites among young and old
+alike, whereever there is a love of flowers. It was worth while to make
+the pilgrimage to Ingleborough, if only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> to see this charming little
+plant in perfection on its native banks.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were other flowers lacking; the wild geraniums especially were in
+force. The shining crane's-bill gleamed on the pale limestone ledges;
+the wood crane's-bill, a local North-country species, gave a glint of
+purple in the copses at the foot of the fell; and still further down,
+below the village of Clapham, there were masses of the blue meadow
+crane's-bill (<i>geranium pratense</i>), the largest and not least handsome
+of the family. The water-avens was everywhere by the stream sides; and
+on a bank above the road the gladdon, or purple iris, was opening its
+dull-tinted flowers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a
+preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to
+the civilized man.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Emerson</span>. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> referred several times to Henry Thoreau, of Concord, in whose
+<i>Journal</i> a great deal is said about wildflowers; and as the volumes are
+not easily accessible to English readers it may be worth while to select
+therefrom a few of the more interesting passages. In all that he wrote
+on the subject Thoreau appears less as the botanist than the
+flower-lover; indeed, he expressly observes that he himself comes under
+the head of the "Botanophilists," as Linnæus termed them; viz. those who
+record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific
+standpoint. "I never studied botany," he said, "and do not to-day,
+systematically; the most natural system is so artificial. I wanted to
+know my neighbours, if possible; to get a little nearer to them." So
+great was his zest in cultivating this floral acquaintance that, as he
+tells us, he often visited a plant four or five miles from Concord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> half
+a dozen times within a fortnight, in order to note its time of
+flowering.</p>
+
+<p>Books he found, in general, unsatisfactory. "I asked a learned and
+accurate naturalist," he says, "who is at the same time the courteous
+guardian of a public library, to direct me to those works which
+contained the more particular popular account, or <i>biography</i>, of
+particular flowers&mdash;for I had trusted that each flower had had many
+lovers and faithful describers in past times&mdash;but he informed me that I
+had read all; that no one was acquainted with them, they were only
+catalogued like his books." It was the human aspect of the flower that
+Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw "pages
+about some fair flower's qualities as food or medicine, but perhaps not
+a sentence about its significance to the eye; as if the cowslip were
+better for 'greens' than for yellows." Thus he complained that botanies
+are "the prose of flowers," instead of what they ought to be, the
+poetry. He made an exception, however, in favour of old Gerarde's
+<i>Herball</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly
+superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not
+according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He
+brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted
+in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His
+leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are
+green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to
+a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> object
+in fresh English words rather than in these conventional
+Latinisms!" </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Linnæus, too, "the man of flowers," as he calls him, is praised by
+Thoreau. "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the
+science. Read Linnæus at once, and come down from him as far as you
+please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how
+little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with
+Linnæus."</p>
+
+<p>Thoreau's manner of botanizing was, like most of his habits, somewhat
+singular. His vasculum was his straw-hat. "I never used any other," he
+writes, "and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its
+dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry-table, I
+assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box." With this
+vasculum he professed himself more than content.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in
+midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I
+could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours
+that arise from the head&mdash;at least, if you take a bath&mdash;which
+preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come
+fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they
+have had no sprinkling. </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The joy of meeting with a new plant, a sensation known to all searchers
+after flowers, is more than once mentioned in the <i>Journal</i>: the
+discovery of a single flower hitherto unknown to him makes him feel as
+if he were in a wealth of novelties. "By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> the discovery of one new plant
+all bounds seem to be infinitely removed." He notes, too, the not
+uncommon experience, that a flower, once recognized, is likely soon to
+be re-encountered. Seeing something blue, or glaucous, in a swamp, he
+approaches it, and finds it to be the <i>Andromeda polifolia</i>, which had
+been shown him, only a few days before, in Emerson's collection; now he
+sees it in abundance. At times he adopts the method of sitting quietly
+and looking around him, on the principle that "as it is best to sit in a
+grove and let the birds come to you, so, as it were, even the flowers
+will come."</p>
+
+<p>Swamps were among Thoreau's favourite haunts: he thinks it would be a
+luxury to stand in one, up to his chin, for a whole summer's day,
+scenting the sweet-fern and bilberries. "That is a glorious swamp of
+Miles's," he remarks; "the more open parts, where the dwarf andromeda
+prevails. . . . These are the wildest and richest gardens that we have."
+The fields were less trustworthy, because of the annual vandalism of the
+mowing. "About these times," he writes in June, "some hundreds of men,
+with freshly sharpened scythes, make an irruption into my garden when in
+its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can; and I
+am restricted to the rough hedges and worn-out fields which had little
+to attract them."</p>
+
+<p>Among Thoreau's best-beloved flowers, if we may judge by certain
+passages of the <i>Journal</i>, was the large white bindweed (<i>convolvulus
+sepium</i>), or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> "morning-glory." "It always refreshes me to see it," he
+writes; "I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over
+my morning walks and thoughts." Not less worthily celebrated by him, in
+another mood, are the wild rose and the water-lily.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>We now have roses on the land and lilies on the water&mdash;both land
+and water have done their best&mdash;now, just after the longest day.
+Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with
+the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender
+petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet
+queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the
+water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid
+rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a
+green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour
+belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water. </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was not Thoreau's practice to pluck many flowers; he preferred, as a
+rule, to leave them where they were; but he speaks of the fitness of
+having "in a vase of water on your table the wildflowers of the season
+which are just blossoming": thus in mid-June he brings home some
+rosebuds ready to expand, "and the next morning they open and fill my
+chamber with fragrance." At another time the grateful thought of the
+calamint's scent suffices him: "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my
+mind to remember its fragrance."</p>
+
+<p>It was characteristic of Thoreau that he loved to renew his outdoor
+pleasures in remembrance, by pondering over the beautiful things he had
+witnessed, whether through sight or sound or scent. His mountain
+excursions were not fully apprehended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> by him, until he had afterwards
+meditated on them. "It is after we get home," he says, "that we really
+go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
+mountain do?" So it was with his flowers: even in the long winter
+evenings they were still his companions and friends.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have remembered, when the winter came,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">High in my chamber in the frosty nights,</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%; Margin-left: 3em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How, in the shimmering noon of summer past,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Some unrecorded beam slanted across</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The upland pastures where the johnswort grew.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>On a January date we find him writing in his <i>Journal</i>: "Perhaps what
+most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we
+leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold
+is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." Thus, by memory,
+his winters were turned into summers, and his flower-seasons were
+continuous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>FELONS AND OUTLAWS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The poisoning henbane, and the mandrake dread.</span><br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Drayton.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> there are felonious as well as philanthropic flowers, plants that
+are actively malignant in their relation to mankind, has always been a
+popular belief. The upas-tree, for example, has given rise to many
+gruesome stories; and the mandrake, fabled to shriek when torn from the
+ground, has played a frequent part in poetry and legend; not to mention
+the host of noxious weeds, the "plants at whose names the verse feels
+loath," as Shelley has it:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The felons, however, of whom I would now speak are not the plants that
+seem merely foul and repulsive, such as the docks and nettles, the
+broom-rapes, toothworts, and similar ill-looking parasites, but rather
+the bold bad outlaws and highwaymen, the "gentlemen of the road," who,
+however deleterious to human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> welfare, have a sinister beauty and
+distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent
+among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself
+belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British
+flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better
+named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly
+described as "the deadly." So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three
+centuries ago exhorted his readers to "banish these pernicious plants
+out of your gardens, and all places near to your houses, where children
+do resort;" and modern writers tell us that the plant is "fortunately"
+of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live
+long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some
+abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and, <i>pace</i>
+Gerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a
+strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the
+large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black
+"wolf-cherries."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Next to the dwale in the nightshade family must rank the henbane, a
+fallen angel among wildflowers; for its beauty is of the sickly and
+fetid kind, which at once attracts and repels. It is curious that in the
+lines from Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> epithet "dank" should be
+given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the
+henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the
+stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch.
+Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late
+years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be "common in
+waste places," one may visit hundreds of waste places without a glimpse
+of it. In the <i>Flora of the Lake District</i> (1885) Arnside is given as
+one of its localities; but I was told by a resident that he had only
+once seen it there, and then it had sprung up in his garden.</p>
+
+<p>It is in similar places that the thorn-apple, another cousin to the
+nightshade, is apt to make its un-invited appearance; less a felon,
+perhaps, than a sturdy rogue and vagabond among flowers of ill repute. A
+year or two ago, I was told by the holder of an allotment-garden that a
+great number of thorn-apples were springing up in his ground; and
+knowing my interest in flowers he sent me a small basketful of the young
+plants, which, rather to my neighbours' surprise, I set out in a row,
+like lettuces, in a corner of my back-yard. There they flourished well,
+and in due course made a fine show with their trumpet-shaped white
+flowers and the big thorny capsules whence the plant takes its name. It
+is not a bad-looking fellow, but awkward and hulking, and quite devoid
+of the sickly grace of the henbane or of the bodeful gloom of the
+dwale.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Passing now to the handsome but acrid tribe of the <i>ranunculi</i>, and
+omitting the poisonous but interesting baneberry, of which I have
+already spoken, we come to two formidable plants, the hellebore and the
+monk's-hood, which have been famous from earliest times for their
+dangerous propensities. The green hellebore, though in Westmorland named
+"felon grass," is a less felonious-looking flower than its close kinsman
+the fetid hellebore, whose general appearance, owing to the crude pale
+green of its purple-tipped sepals, and the reluctance of its globe-like
+buds to expand themselves fully, is one of insalubrity and unripeness.
+But it is a plant of distinction, some two or three feet in height; and
+as it flowers before the winter is well past, it can hardly fail to
+arrest attention in the few places where it is to be found: in Arundel
+Park, in Sussex, it may be seen growing in close conjunction with the
+deadly nightshade&mdash;a noteworthy pair of desperadoes.</p>
+
+<p>The other malefactor of the ranunculus family is the aconite, or
+monk's-hood, a poisonous but very picturesque flower with deep blue
+blossoms, which takes its name from the hood-like appearance of the
+upper sepal. "It beareth," Gerarde tells us, "very fair and goodly blew
+floures in shape like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would
+thinke they were of some excellent vertue." A traitor, a masked bandit
+it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man,
+"unless it can find in him something else to kill," some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> disease, to
+wit; and thus it holds its place in the pharmacop&oelig;ia.</p>
+
+<p>The umbellifers include a number of outlaws such as the water-dropworts
+and cowbane; but among the dangerous members of the tribe there is only
+one that attains to real greatness, and that of course is the hemlock, a
+poisoner of old-established renown, as witness the death of Socrates.
+"Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" is one of the ingredients in the
+witches' cauldron in <i>Macbeth</i>, and the hemlock's name has always been
+one to conjure with, which may account for the fact that several
+kindred, but less eminent plants unlawfully aspire to it, and are
+erroneously thus classed. But the true hemlock is unmistakable: the
+stout bloodspotted stem distinguishes it from the lesser crew; its
+finely cut fernlike leaves are exceedingly beautiful; and it is of
+stately habit&mdash;I have seen it growing to the height of nine feet, or
+more, in places where the surrounding brushwood had to be overtopped.</p>
+
+<p>Let us give their due, then, to these outlaws of whom I have spoken,
+these Robin Hoods of the floral world. Bandits and highwaymen they may
+be; but after all, our woods and waysides would be much duller if they
+were banished.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME MARSH-DWELLERS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Here are cool mosses deep.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 8em;"><span class="smcap">Tennyson.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What</span> Thoreau wrote of his Massachusetts swamps is hardly less true of
+ours; a marsh is everywhere a great allurement for botanists. By a road
+which crosses a certain Sussex Common there is a church, and close
+behind the church a narrow swampy piece of ground known as "the great
+bog," which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet
+whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words: "<i>My</i> temple is
+the swamp." For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the
+Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be
+hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being
+the home not only of a number of characteristic plants&mdash;lesser
+skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and
+the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw&mdash;but of one of our rarest and most
+beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old
+herbalists as the "marsh-felwort."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at
+once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large
+funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green
+bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining
+banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the
+locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who
+cross the Common. On the afternoon in early September when I first found
+the place, a number of children were blackberrying there, and I dreaded
+every moment to see them turn aside to pick a bunch of the gentians,
+which doubtless would soon have been thrown aside to wither, as is the
+fate of so many spring flowers; but though the blue petals were
+conspicuous in the heather they were left entirely unmolested. For this
+merciful abstinence there were probably two reasons: one that the
+flower-picking habit is exhausted before the autumn; the other that the
+gentians, however beautiful, are not among the recognized
+favourites&mdash;daffodils, primroses, violets, forget-me-nots, and the
+like&mdash;that by long custom have taken hold of the imagination of
+childhood. Had it been otherwise, this rare little annual could hardly
+have survived so long.</p>
+
+<p>In botanical usage there seems to be no difference between the terms
+"marsh" and "bog," nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained
+distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belonging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> to a
+somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of
+what might be called "Anne-prattle," had so real a love of her subject
+that her best book, <i>Haunts of the Wild Flowers</i>, affords very agreeable
+reading. "The distinction between a bog and a marsh," she says, "is
+simply that the latter is more wet, and that the foot sinks in; while on
+a bog the soft soil, though it yields to the pressure of the foot, rises
+again." The definition itself seems hardly to be based on <i>terra firma</i>;
+but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst,
+an adventurous botanist "is often rewarded for the temporary chill by
+the beauty of the plant which he has gathered." That is a consolation
+which I have not seldom enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>But a pleasanter name, in my opinion, than either "marsh" or "bog," is
+one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties
+generally, viz. "a moss." It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an
+occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near
+Penrith, "the foot sank in," and a good deal more than the foot; but the
+acquaintance then made for the first time with that giant of the
+<i>ranunculus</i> order, the great spearwort, was sufficient recompense, for
+who would complain of a wetting when he met with a buttercup four feet
+in stature?</p>
+
+<p>It so happened, however, that the plant in whose quest I had ventured on
+the precarious surface of the Newton Regny moss&mdash;the great
+bladderwort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>&mdash;was not to be found on that occasion, though it is
+reported to make a fine show there in August; possibly, in an early
+season, it had already finished its flowering, and had sunk, after the
+inconsiderate manner of its tribe, to the bottom of the pools. Nor did I
+see its rarer sister, the lesser bladderwort; with whom indeed I have
+only once had the pleasure of meeting, and that was in a rather awkward
+place, a deep pond lying close below a railway-bank, and overlooked by
+the windows of the passing trains, so that I not only had to swim for a
+flower, but to consult a time-table before swimming, in order to avoid
+having a "gallery" at the moment when seclusion was desired.</p>
+
+<p>Our North-country "mosses" are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by
+virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken
+succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of
+the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of
+Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is
+very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its
+strange purple blossoms as "dingy"&mdash;I allude to that wilder relative of
+the wild strawberry, the marsh-cinquefoil, which, though rather local,
+is in habit decidedly gregarious. For several years it had eluded me in
+a Carnarvonshire valley; until one day, wandering by the riverside, I
+came upon a swampy expanse where it was growing in hundreds, remarkable
+both for the deep rusty hue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> of its petals, and for the large
+strawberry-like fruit that was just beginning to form.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the more extensive "mosses," the lower slopes of the
+mountains, both in Cumberland and Wales, are often rich in flowers
+unsuspected by the wayfarer, who, keeping to some upland track, sees
+nothing on either side but bare peaty moors that appear to be entirely
+barren. And barren in many cases they are. You may wander for miles and
+not see a flower; then suddenly perhaps, on rounding a rock, you will
+find yourself in one of these natural gardens in the wilderness, where
+the ground is pink with red rattle growing so thickly as to hide the
+grass; or white with spotted orchis, handsomer and in greater abundance
+than is dreamed of in the south; or, a still more glorious sight, tinged
+over large spaces with the yellow of the bog-asphodel, a plant which is
+beautiful in its fruit as well as its flower, for when the blossoms are
+passed the dry wiry stems turn to deep orange. Sun-dews are everywhere;
+the quaint and affable butterwort is plastered over the wet rocks; and
+the marsh St. John's-wort, so unlike the rest of its family that the
+relationship is not always recognized, is frequent in the spongy pools.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there, a small patch of pink on the grey heath, will be seen
+the delicate bog-pimpernel, which might take rank as the fairest flower
+of the marsh, were it not that the diminutive ivy-leaved campanula is
+also trailing its fairy-like form through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> the wet grasses, among which
+it might wholly escape notice unless search were made for it. To realize
+the perfection of its beauty&mdash;the exquisite structure of its small green
+leaves, slender thread-like stems, and bells of palest blue&mdash;you must go
+down on your knees to examine it, however damp the ground; a fitting act
+of homage to one of the loveliest of Flora's children.</p>
+
+<p>Better cultivation, preceded by improved drainage, is ceaselessly
+encroaching on our marshlands and lessening the number of their flowers.
+The charming little cranberry, for instance, once so plentiful that it
+came to market in wagonloads from the fens of the eastern counties, is
+now far from common; and our cranberry-tarts have to be supplied from
+oversea. But much more ravishing than the red berries are the
+rose-coloured flowers, though they are known to scarcely one in a
+thousand of the persons familiar with the fruit. I always think with
+pleasure of the day when I first saw them, on the Whinlatter pass, near
+Keswick, their small wiry stems creeping on the surface of the swamp, a
+feast for an epicure's eye. It is under the open air, not under a
+pie-crust, that such dainties are appreciated as they deserve.</p>
+
+<p>These, then, being some of the many attractions offered by our "mosses,"
+is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a
+modern "moss-trooper," and ride out over the border in search for such
+imperishable spoil? His part,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> indeed, is a much wiser one than that of
+the old freebooters; for who would risk life in the forcible lifting of
+other persons' cattle, when at the slight expense to which Anne Pratt
+alluded&mdash;the temporary chill caused by the sinking of his foot in a
+marsh&mdash;he can enrich himself far more agreeably in the manner which I
+have described?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>A NORTHERN MOOR</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thundering o'er Caldron and High Force.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><span class="smcap">Scott.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A first</span> glance at the bleak and inhospitable moorland of Upper Teesdale
+would not lead one to suppose that it is famous for its flora. No more
+desolate-looking upland could be imagined; the great wolds stretch away
+monotonously, broken only by a few scars that overhang the course of the
+stream, and devoid of the grandeur that is associated with mountain
+scenery. No houses are visible, except a few white homesteads that dot
+the slopes&mdash;their whiteness, it is said, being of service to the farmers
+when they return in late evening from some distant market and are faced
+with the difficulty of finding their own doors. Its wildness is the one
+charm of the place; in that it is unsurpassed.</p>
+
+<p>But this bare valley, botanically regarded, is a bit of the far North,
+interpolated between Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire, where the
+Teesdale basalt or "whinstone" affords an advanced station<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> for many
+rare plants of the highland type as they trend southward; and there, for
+five or six miles, from the upper waterfall of Caldron Snout to that of
+High Force, the banks of the Tees, with the rough pastures, scars, and
+fells that form its border, hold many floral treasures.</p>
+
+<p>The first flower to attract attention on these wild lawns is that queen
+of violets, the mountain pansy (<i>viola lutea</i>), not uncommon on many
+midland and northern heaths, but nowhere else growing in such
+prodigality as here, or with such rich mingling of colours&mdash;orange
+yellow, creamy white, deep purple, and velvet black&mdash;till the eye of the
+traveller is sated with the gorgeous tints. To the violet tribe this
+pansy stands in somewhat the same relation as does the bird's-eye
+primrose to the <i>primulas</i>; it is a mountain cousin, at once hardier and
+more beautiful than its kinsfolk of wood and plain. Seeing it in such
+abundance, we can understand why Teesdale has been described as "the
+gardener's paradise;" but the expression is not a fitting one, for
+"gardener" suggests "trowel," and the nurseryman is the sort of Peri to
+whom the gates of this paradise ought to be for ever closed.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the first stroll which a visitor to Upper Teesdale is likely
+to take, is by the bank of the river just above High Force; and here the
+most conspicuous plant is a big cinquefoil, the <i>potentilla fruticosa</i>,
+a shrub about three feet in height, bearing large yellow flowers. Rare
+elsewhere, it is in exuber<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>ance beside the Tees; and I remember the
+amused surprise with which a dalesman regarded me, when he saw my
+interest in a weed that to him was so familiar and so cheap.</p>
+
+<p>But the smaller notabilities of the district have to be personally
+searched for; they do not obtrude themselves on the wayfarer's glance.
+On the Yorkshire side of the stream stands Cronkley Scar, a buttress of
+the high moor known as Mickle Fell; and here, in the wet gullies, may be
+found such choice northern plants as the Alpine meadow-rue; the Scottish
+asphodel (<i>Tofieldia</i>), a small relative of the common bog-asphodel; and
+the curious viviparous bistort, another highland immigrant, bearing a
+spike of dull white flowers and small bulbs below.</p>
+
+<p>The fell above the scar is a desolate tract, frequented by golden plover
+and other moorland birds. On one occasion when I ascended it I was
+overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain, which compelled me to
+leave the further heights of Mickle Fell unexplored, and to retreat to
+the less exposed pastures of Widdibank on the opposite side of the Tees,
+here a broad but shallow mountain stream, which in dry weather can be
+forded without difficulty but becomes a roaring torrent after heavy
+rains. In the course of two short visits, one in mid-July, the other in
+the spring of the following year, I twice had the opportunity of seeing
+the river in either mood, first in unruffled tranquillity, then in
+furious spate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is in May or early June that Teesdale is at the height of its glory;
+for the plant which lends it a special renown is the spring gentian,
+perhaps the brightest jewel among all British flowers, small, but a true
+Alpine, and of that intense blue which signalizes the gentian race. Here
+this noble flower grows in plenty, not in wide profusion like the
+pansies, but in large and thriving colonies, not confined to one side of
+the stream. It was on the Durham bank that I first saw it&mdash;one of those
+rare scenes that a flower-lover cannot forget, for the blue gentians
+were intermingled with pink bird's-eye primroses, only less lovely than
+themselves, and close by were a few spikes of the Alpine bartsia, whose
+sombre purple was in marked contrast with the brilliant hues of its
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>Of this rare bartsia I had plucked a single flower on my previous visit
+to the same spot, but then in somewhat hurried circumstances. I had been
+crossing the wide pastures near Widdibank farm in company with a friend,
+who, having heard rumours of the temper of Teesdale bulls, had unwisely
+allowed his thoughts to be somewhat distracted from the pansies. We were
+in the middle of a field of vast extent, when I heard my companion
+asking anxiously: "Is <i>that</i> one?" It certainly <i>was</i> one; not a pansy,
+but a bull; and he was advancing towards us with very unfriendly noises
+and gestures. We therefore retired as quickly as we could, without
+seeming to run&mdash;he slowly following us&mdash;in the direction of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> river;
+and there, under a high bank, over which we expected every moment the
+bulky head to reappear, I saw the Alpine bartsia, and stooped to pick
+one as we fled, my friend mildly deprecating even so slight a delay.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, on my second visit, I was able to examine the bank at my
+leisure, and to have full enjoyment of as striking a group of flowers as
+could be seen on English soil&mdash;gentian, bird's-eye primrose, Alpine
+bartsia&mdash;and as if these were not sufficient, the mountain pansy running
+riot in the pasture just above.</p>
+
+<p>So far, I have spoken only of the plants which I myself saw; there are
+other and greater rarities in Teesdale which the casual visitor can
+hardly expect to encounter. The yellow marsh-saxifrage (<i>S. hirculus</i>)
+occurs in two or three places on the slopes of Mickle Fell; so, too, in
+limestone crevices does the mountain-avens (<i>dryas octopetala</i>), and the
+winter-green (<i>pyrola secunda</i>); while on Little Fell, which lies
+further to the south-west, towards Appleby, the scarce Alpine
+forget-me-not is reported to be plentiful. I was told by a botanist
+that, in crossing the moors from Teesdale to Westmorland, he once picked
+up what he took for a fine clump of the common star-saxifrage, and
+afterwards found to his surprise that it was the Alpine snow-saxifrage
+(<i>S. nivalis</i>), which during the past thirty years has become
+exceedingly rare both in the Lake District and in North Wales.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The haunts of the rarer flowers are not likely to be discovered in a day
+or two, nor yet in a week or two: it is only to him who has gone many
+times over the ground that such secrets will disclose themselves; but
+even the passing rambler must be struck, as I was, by the number of
+noteworthy plants that Teesdale wears, so to speak, upon its sleeve. The
+globe-flower revels in the moist meadows; so, too, do the water-avens
+and the marsh-cinquefoil, nor is the butterfly orchis far to seek; and
+though the yellow marsh-saxifrage may remain hidden, there is no lack of
+the yellow saxifrage of the mountain (<i>saxifraga aizoides</i>), to console
+you, if it can, for the absence of its rarer cousin. The cross-leaved
+bedstraw (<i>galium boreale</i>), another North-country plant, luxuriates on
+low wet cliffs by the river.</p>
+
+<p>Last, but not least, in the later months of summer, is the mountain
+thistle (<i>carduus heterophyllus</i>), or the "melancholy thistle" as it is
+often called&mdash;a title which seems to have small relevance, unless all
+plants of a grave and dignified bearing are to be so named. Do men
+expect to gather figs of thistles, that they should demand the simple
+gaiety of the cowslip or the primrose from such a plant as this, whose
+rich purple flowers, spineless stem, and large parti-coloured
+leaves&mdash;deep green above, white below&mdash;mark it as one of the most
+handsome, as it is certainly the most gracious and benevolent of its
+tribe?</p>
+
+<p>As I walked down the valley, on a wet morning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> in July, to take train at
+Middleton, twenty-four hours of rain had turned the river through which
+I had easily waded on the previous day, into a flood that was terrifying
+both in aspect and sound. It was no time for flower-hunting; but even
+then the wonders of the place were not exhausted; for along the
+hedgerows I saw in plenty that same stately thistle, which in most
+districts where it occurs is viewed with some interest and curiosity,
+but in Teesdale is a roadside weed&mdash;subject, I was shocked to observe,
+to the insolence of the passers-by, who, knowing not what they do,
+maltreat it as if it were some vulgar pest of the fields, a thing to be
+hacked at and trampled on. Even so, I saw in it a discrowned king, who
+"nothing common did or mean."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>APRIL IN SNOWDONIA</h3>
+
+<blockquote><p>It is Easter Sunday . . . the hills are high, and stretch away to
+heaven.&mdash;<span class="smcap">De Quincey</span>. </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> wrote De Quincey in one of his finest dream-fugues. There seems, in
+truth, to be a certain fitness in the turning of men's thoughts at the
+spring season to the heights of the mountains, where, as nowhere else,
+the cares and ailments of the winter time are forgotten; and it is a
+noticeable fact that these upland districts are now as thronged with
+visitors during Easter week as in August itself. As I write, I am
+sitting by a wood fire under a high rock in a sheltered nook at Capel
+Curig, with a biting north-easter blowing overhead and an occasional
+snow-squall whitening the hillsides around, while the upper ridges are
+covered in places with great fields and spaces of snow, which at times
+loom dim and ghostly through the haze, and then gleam out gloriously in
+the interludes of sunshine. The scenery at the top of Snowdon, the
+Glyders, Carnedd Llewelyn, and the other giants of the district has been
+quite Alpine in character. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> wind has drifted the snow in great
+pillowy masses among the rocks, or piled it in long cornices along the
+edges, and on several days when the air was at its keenest, the snow
+fields have been crisp and firm, and have afforded excellent footing as
+a change from the rough "screes" and crags; at other times, when the sun
+has shone out warmly, the snow has been soft and treacherous, and the
+spectacle has often been seen of the too trustful tourist struggling
+waistdeep.</p>
+
+<p>Mid-April in Snowdonia, when March has been cold and wet, shows scarcely
+an advance from midwinter as far as the blossoming of flowers is
+concerned. Down by the coast the land is gay with gorse and primroses,
+but in the bleak upland dales that radiate from the great mountains
+hardly a bloom is to be seen; nor do the river banks and marshy pastures
+as yet show so much as a kingcup, a spearwort, or a celandine. The
+visitors have come in their multitudes to walk, to climb, to cycle, to
+motor, to take photographs, or to take fish, as the case may be; but if
+one of them were to confess that he had come to look for flowers he
+would indeed surprise the natives&mdash;still more if he were to point to the
+upper ramparts of the mountains, among the rocks and snows and clouds,
+as the place of his design.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it is there that we must climb, if we would see the pride of the
+purple saxifrage, the earliest of our mountain flowers, blest by
+botanists with the cumbrous name of <i>saxifraga oppositifolia</i>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+often grown by gardeners, who know it as a Swiss immigrant, but not as a
+British native. A true Alpine, it is not found in this country much
+below 2,000 feet, and in Switzerland its range is far higher, for it is
+a neighbour and a lover of the snows. Small and slight as it may seem,
+when compared with some of its more splendid brethren of the Alps, it
+has the distinction of a high-bred race, the character of the genuine
+mountaineer. It is a wearer of the purple, in deed as well as in name.</p>
+
+<p>But our approach to the home of the saxifrage is not to be accomplished
+without toil, in weather which is a succession of boisterous squalls.
+Under such a gale we have literally to push our way in a five-mile walk
+to the foot of the hills, and as we climb higher and higher up the
+slopes we have a ceaselesstussle with the strong, invisible foe who
+buffets us from every side in turn, while he hisses against the sharp
+edges of the crags, or growls with dull subterranean noises under the
+piles of fallen rocks. As for the streams, they are blown visibly out of
+their steep channels and carried in light spray across the hillside,
+while sheets of water are lifted from the surface of the lake. Not till
+we reach the base of the great escarpment which forms the north-east
+wall of the mountain are we able to draw breath in peace; for there,
+under the topmost precipices, flecked with patches of snow, is a strange
+and blissful calm. But now, just when our search begins, the mists,
+which have long been circling overhead, creep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> down and fill the upland
+hollow where we stand, cutting off our view not only of the valley below
+but of the range of cliffs above, and confining us in a sequestered
+cloudland of our own. Still climbing along a line of snowdrifts which
+follows a ridge of rocks, and which serves at once as a convenient route
+for an ascent and a safe guide for a return, we scan the likely-looking
+corners and crevices for the object of our pilgrimage. At first in vain;
+and then fears begin to assail us that we may be doomed to
+disappointment. Can we have come too early, even for so early a plant,
+in a backward season? Or have some wandering tourists or roving knights
+of the trowel (for such there are) robbed the mountain-side of its
+gem&mdash;for this saxifrage, owing to the brightness of its petals on the
+grey and barren slopes, is so conspicuous as to be at the mercy of the
+passer-by.</p>
+
+<p>But even as we stand in doubt there is a gleam of purple through the
+mist, and yonder, on a boss of rock, is a cluster of the rubies we have
+come not to steal but to admire. What strikes one about the purple
+saxifrage, when seen at close quarters, its many bright flowerets
+peering out from a cushion of moss, is the largeness of the blossoms in
+proportion to the shortness of the stems; a precocious, wide-browed
+little plant, it looks as if the cares of existence at these wintry
+altitudes had given it a somewhat thoughtful cast. At a distance it
+makes a splash of colour on the rocks, and from the high cliffs above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+it hangs out, here and there, in tufts that are fortunately beyond
+reach.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Having paid our homage to the flower, we leave it on its lofty throne
+among the clouds, and descend by snow-slopes and scree-slides to the
+windy, blossomless valley beneath. A month hence, when the season of the
+Welsh poppy, the globe-flower, and the butterwort is beginning, the
+reign of the purple saxifrage will be at an end. To be appreciated as it
+deserves, it must be seen not as a poor captive of cultivation, but in
+its free, wild environment, among the remotest fastnesses of the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The wild animal life on the hills, so noteworthy in the later spring,
+seems as yet to have hardly awakened. We saw a white hare one afternoon
+on Carnedd Llewelyn, but that was the only beast of the mountains that
+crossed our path during eight days' climbing, nor were the birds so
+numerous as might have been expected. The croak of the raven was heard
+at times, in his high breeding-places, and on another occasion there was
+a triple conflict in the air between a raven, a buzzard, and a hawk. On
+the lower moorlands the curlew was beginning to arrive from his winter
+haunts by the seashore, and small flocks of gulls, driven inland by the
+winds, were hovering over the waters of Llyn Ogwen, where we saw several
+of them mobbing a solitary heron, who seemed much embarrassed by their
+onslaught,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> until he succeeded in getting his great wings into motion.</p>
+
+<p>But if bird-life is still somewhat dormant in these lofty regions, there
+have been plenty of human migrants on the wing. From our high
+watch-tower, we saw daily, far below us, the long line of
+motorists&mdash;those terrestrial birds of prey&mdash;speeding along the white
+roads, and flying past a hundred entrancing spots, as if their object
+were to see as little as possible of what they presumably came to see.
+Flocks of cyclists, too, were visible here and there, avoiding the cars
+as best they could, and drinking not so much "the wind of their own
+speed," in the poet's words, as the swirl and dust of the motors; while
+on the bypaths and open hillsides swarmed the happier foot-travellers,
+pilgrims in some cases from long distances over the mountains, or
+skilled climbers with ropes coiled over their shoulders and faces set
+sternly towards some beetling crag or black gully in the escarpment
+above. In one respect only are they all alike&mdash;that they are birds of
+passage and are here only for the holiday. Soon they will be gone, and
+then the ancient silence will settle down once more upon the hills, and
+buzzard and raven will be undisturbed, until July and August bring the
+great summer incursion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FLOWER-GAZING <i>IN EXCELSIS</i></h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I gazed, and gazed, but little thought</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What wealth the show to me had brought.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is no more inspiring pastime than flower-gazing under the high
+crags of Snowdon. The love of flowers reveals a new and delightful
+aspect of the mountain life, and leads its votaries into steeps and
+wilds which, as they lie aloof from the usual ways of the climber, might
+otherwise escape notice. It must be owned that our Cumbrian and Cambrian
+hills are not rich in flowers as Switzerland is rich; one cannot here
+step out on the mountain-side and see great sheets of colour, as on some
+Alpine slope; and not only must we search for our treasures, but we must
+know <i>where</i> to search. They do not grow everywhere; much depends on the
+nature of the soil, much on the altitude, much on the configuration of
+the hills. There are great barren tracts which bear little but heather
+and bilberry; but there are rarer beds of volcanic ash and cal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>careous
+rock which are a joy to the heart of the flower-lover.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<p>Again, one is apt to think that on those heights, where the winter is
+long and severe, it is the southern flanks that must be the haunt of the
+flowers; in reality, it is the north-east side that is the more
+favoured, owing to the fact that the hills, in both districts, for the
+most part rise gently from the south or the south-west, in gradual
+slopes that are usually dry and wind-swept, while northward and eastward
+they fall away steeply in broken and water-worn escarpments. It is here,
+among the wet ledges and rock-faces, constantly sprayed from the high
+cliffs above, where springs have their sources, that the right
+conditions of shade and moisture are attained; and here only can the
+Alpines be found in any abundance. The precipices of Cwm Idwal and Cwm
+Glas, in Wales, and in the Lake District the east face of Helvellyn, may
+stand as examples of such rock-gardens.</p>
+
+<p>The course of a climber is usually along the top of the ridge, that of
+the botanist at its base; his paradise is that less frequented region
+which may be called the undercliff, where the "screes" begin to break
+away from the overhanging precipice, and where, in the angle thus
+formed, there is often a little track which winds along the hillside,
+sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> rising, sometimes falling, but always with the cliff above
+and the scree-slope below. Following this natural guidance he may
+scramble around the base of the rocks, or along their transverse ledges,
+and feast his eyes on the many mountain flowers that are within sight,
+if not within reach.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fine sport, this flower-gazing; not only because all the plants
+are beautiful and many of them rare, but because it demands a certain
+skill to balance oneself on a steep declivity, while looking upward,
+through binoculars, at some attractive clump of purple saxifrage, or
+moss-campion, or thrift, or rose-root, or globe-flower, as the case may
+be.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> To the veteran rambler especially, this flower-cult is
+congenial; for it supplies&mdash;I will not say an excuse for not going to
+the top, but a less severe and exacting diversion, which still takes him
+into the inmost solitudes of the mountain, and keeps him in unfailing
+touch with its character and genius.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>I have spoken of Snowdonia in the spring; let us view it now in the
+fulness of June or July, when its flora is at its richest. It is not
+till you have climbed to a height of about two thousand feet that the
+true joys of the mountains begin. At first, perhaps, as you follow the
+course of the stream you will see nothing more than a bunch of white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+scurvy-grass or a spray of golden-rod; but when you reach the region
+where the thin cascade comes sliding down over the moist rocks, and the
+topmost cliffs seem to impend, then you will have your reward, for you
+have entered into the kingdom of the Alpines.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose, for example, that you stand at the foot of the narrow ridge of
+Crib-y-Ddysgl, a great precipice which overhangs the upper chambers of
+Cwm Glas on the northern side of Snowdon, with an escarpment formed of
+huge slabs of rock intersected by wet gullies, narrow niches, and
+transverse terraces of grass. Looking up, to where the Crib towers
+above, you will see a goodly array of plants. Thrift is there, in large
+clumps as handsome as on any sea-cliffs; rose-root, the big
+mountain-stonecrop; cushions of moss-campion, which bears the local name
+of "Snowdon pink"; lady's-mantle, intermixed with the reddening leaves
+of mountain-sorrel; Welsh poppy, not so common a flower in Wales as its
+name would suggest; and at least three kinds of beautiful white
+blossoms&mdash;the starry saxifrage, the mossy saxifrage, and the shapely
+little sandwort (<i>arenaria verna</i>), as fair as the saxifrages
+themselves, and what higher praise could be given? The flower-lover can
+scarcely hope for greater delight than that which the starry saxifrage
+will yield him. It has been well said that "one who has not seen it
+growing, say, in some rift of the rock exposed by the wearing of the
+mountain torrent, cannot imagine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> how lovely it is, or how fitly it is
+named. White and starry, and saxifrage&mdash;how charming must that which has
+three such names be!"<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+
+<p>Another lofty rock-face, similar in its flora to that of Snowdon, is the
+precipice at the head of Cwm Idwal, near the point where it is broken by
+the famous chasm of the Devil's Kitchen. Hereabouts is the chief station
+of the <i>Lloydia</i>, or spiderwort, a rather rare and pretty Alpine, a
+delicate lily of the high rocks, bearing solitary white flowers veined
+with red, and a few exceedingly narrow leaves that resemble the legs of
+a spider. Unlike most mountain plants, it has a considerable local
+reputation; and during its short flowering season in June one may
+observe small parties of enthusiasts from Bangor or Carnarvon,
+diligently scanning the black cliffs above Llyn Idwal, in the hope of
+spying it. The place where I first saw the <i>Lloydia</i> in blossom was Cwm
+Glas; but I had previously noticed its long thin leaves in two or three
+places around the Devil's Kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>The haunts of the Alpine meadow-rue (<i>thalictrum alpinum</i>) are similar
+to those of the spiderwort; and a most elegant little plant it is, its
+gracefully drooping terminal cluster of small yellowish flowers being
+borne on a simple naked stem, whereas its less aristocratic relative,
+the smaller meadow-rue (<i>t. collinum</i>), which is much commoner on these
+rocks, is bushier and more branched. I had many disappointments, before
+I rightly apprehended the true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> Alpine species; once distinguished, it
+cannot again be mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>It was to a chance meeting in Ogwen Cottage, at the foot of Cwm Idwal,
+with Dr. Lloyd Williams, a skilled botanist who had brought a party of
+friends to visit the home of the <i>Lloydia</i>, that I owed my introduction
+to another very beautiful inhabitant of those heights, the white
+mountain-avens, known to rock-gardeners as <i>dryas octopetala</i>. Happy is
+the flower-gazer who has looked on the galaxy, the "milky way," of those
+fair mountain nymphs&mdash;for the plant is in truth an oread rather than a
+dryad&mdash;where they shed their lustre from certain favoured ledges in a
+spot which it is safer to leave unspecified. I must have passed close to
+the place many scores of times, in the forty or more years during which
+I had known the mountain; yet never till then did I become aware of the
+treasure that was enshrined in it!</p>
+
+<p>But of all the glories of Cwm Idwal&mdash;rarities apart&mdash;the greatest, when
+the summer is at its prime, is the array of globe-flowers. This splendid
+buttercup usually haunts the banks of mountain streams, or the sides of
+damp woods, in the West country and the North; its range is given in the
+<i>Flora of the Lake District</i> as not rising above nine hundred feet; but
+in Snowdonia, not content to dwell with its cousins the kingcups and
+spearworts in the upland valleys, it aspires to a far more romantic
+station, and is seen blooming in profusion at twice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> and almost three
+times that height on the most precipitous rock-ledges.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> One may gaze
+by the hour, enraptured, and never weary of the sight.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>I have by no means exhausted the list of notable Snowdonian flowers that
+are native in the two localities of which I have spoken, or in a few
+other spots that are similarly favoured by geological conditions: the
+sea-plantain, the mountain-cudweed, the stone-bramble, the queer little
+whitlow-grass with twisted pods (<i>draba incana</i>), its still rarer
+congener the Alpine rock-cress, and the <i>Saussurea</i>, or Alpine
+saw-wort&mdash;all these, and more, are to be found there by the pilgrim who
+devotedly searches the scriptures of the hills. But of the <i>Saussurea</i>
+some mention will have to be made in the next chapter; for it is now
+time to turn from Cambria to Cumbria, from the "cwms" and "cribs" of
+Snowdon to the "coves" and "edges" of Helvellyn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>COVES OF HELVELLYN</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;"><span class="smcap">Scott.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> far I have spoken more of the Welsh mountain flowers than of those
+belonging to Lakeland; but the difference between the two districts, in
+regard to their respective floras, is not very great, and with a few
+exceptions the plants that are native on the one range may be looked for
+on the other. The <i>Lloydia</i> is found in Snowdonia only; and Wales can
+boast, not a monopoly, but a greater plenty of the moss-campion and the
+purple saxifrage. On the other hand, the Alpine lady's-mantle and the
+yellow mountain-saxifrage, both abundant in Cumberland, are absent from
+Carnarvonshire; and this is somewhat of a loss, for the common
+lady's-mantle, charming though it is, lacks the beauty of the Alpine,
+and the yellow saxifrages, as they hang from the rocks like a phalanx of
+tiny golden shields&mdash;each with bright petals and pale green sepals
+radiating from a central boss&mdash;are among the greatest ornaments of the
+fells.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Again, the lovely little bird's-eye primrose is a North-country plant
+which is not found in Wales; against which may be set, perhaps, that gem
+of the damp mosses on certain Welsh streamsides, the ivy-leaved
+bell-flower. More characteristic of Lakeland than of Snowdonia, though
+not peculiar to it, are those two very beautiful flowers, the one a
+child of the swamp, the other of the high pastures, the grass of
+Parnassus, and the mountain-pansy; and to conclude the list, the
+snow-saxifrage and the mountain-avens are about equally rare in both
+countries&mdash;the avens, indeed, is confined to one or two stations, where
+fortunately it is little known.</p>
+
+<p>Helvellyn, as a mountain, is very inferior to Snowdon, nor indeed can it
+compete in grandeur with its own Cumbrian neighbours, the Great Gable
+and Scafell; but among visitors to the Lakes it has nevertheless an
+enduring reputation, largely due to the poems in which Scott and
+Wordsworth have sung its praises. Accordingly, during the tourist
+season, the anxious question: "Is that Helvellyn?" may often be
+overheard; and on a fine day all sorts of incongruous persons may be
+seen making their way up the weary slopes that lead from Grasmere to its
+crest. I once observed a gentleman in a top-hat toiling upward in the
+queue; on another occasion I witnessed at the summit a violent quarrel
+between a married couple, the point of dispute (on which they appealed
+to me) being whether their little dog<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> was, or was not, in danger of
+being blown over the cliffs. As the west wind was certainly very strong,
+and Helvellyn had already been associated with the story of a dog's
+fidelity, I ventured to advise a retreat.</p>
+
+<p>On the east side, however, where its "dark brow" overlooks the Red Tarn,
+and throws out two great lateral ridges&mdash;on the right, in De Quincey's
+words, "the awful curtain of rock called Striding Edge," and Swirrel
+Edge on the left&mdash;Helvellyn is a very fine mountain, and what is more to
+the present purpose, is botanically the most interesting of all the
+Lakeland fells. From Grisedale Tarn to Keppelcove, a distance of full
+three miles, that great escarpment, with the several "coves" that nestle
+beneath it, is the home of many rare Alpine flowers, corresponding in
+that respect with the Welsh rock-faces of Idwal and Cwm Glas; and though
+it does not offer so conspicuous a display, or such keen inducements to
+flower-gazing, a search along its narrow ledges, and under the impending
+crags, home of the hill fox, will seldom disappoint the adventurer.</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago I spent a week of July, in two successive seasons, at
+Patterdale, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the
+mountain flowers, but on both occasions the weather was very stormy and
+made it difficult to be on the fells. At first I searched chiefly under
+Striding Edge and the steep front of Helvellyn, among the rocks that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+lie behind the Red Tarn, and in similar places above Keppelcove Tarn in
+the adjoining valley, hoping with good luck to light on the
+snow-saxifrage. In this I was unsuccessful; but I twice found a plant I
+had not hitherto met with&mdash;in appearance a small spineless thistle, with
+a cluster of light-purple scented flowers&mdash;which proved to be the Alpine
+saw-wort, or <i>Saussurea</i>, and which in later years I saw again on
+Snowdon. A blossom which I picked and kept for several months was so
+little affected by its separation from the parent stem that it continued
+its vital processes in a vase, and passed from flowering to seeding
+without interruption. Like the orpine, it was a veritable "live-long,"
+or as the politicians say, "die-hard."</p>
+
+<p>At Patterdale I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr.
+Robert Nixon, a resident who has had a long and intimate knowledge of
+the local flora; and he very kindly devoted a day to showing me some of
+his flower-haunts on Helvellyn. In the course of this expedition, one of
+the pleasantest in my memory, a number of interesting plants were noted
+by us: among them the mountain-pansy; the cross-leaved bedstraw; the
+vernal sandwort; the Alpine meadow-rue; the moss-campion; the purple
+saxifrage, now past flowering; the mountain willow-herb (<i>epilobium
+alsinifolium</i>), not the true Alpine willow-herb, but a native of similar
+places among the higher rills; and the <i>salix herbacea</i>, or "least
+willow," the smallest of British trees, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> when growing on the bare
+hill-tops is not more than two inches in height, though in the clefts of
+rock at the edge of the main escarpment we found it of much larger size.</p>
+
+<p>The moss-campion (<i>silene acaulis</i>) is especially associated with the
+locality of which I am speaking&mdash;the neighbourhood of Grisedale
+Tarn&mdash;and is mentioned in the "Elegiac Verses," composed by Wordsworth
+"near the mountain track that leads from Grasmere through Grisedale":</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There cleaving to the ground, it lies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With multitude of purple eyes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Spangling a cushion green like moss.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>To this the poet added in a note: "This most beautiful plant is scarce
+in England. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was
+singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches in
+diameter. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in
+both of which I have since sought for it in vain." The other place may
+have been the hill above Rydal Mount; for a contributor to the <i>Flora of
+the Lake District</i> states that it was there shown to him by Wordsworth.
+The poet's knowledge of the higher mountains, and of the mountain flora,
+was not great. The moss-campion though local, is much less rare than he
+supposed, and its "cushions" grow to a far larger bulk than that of the
+one described by him. In his <i>Holidays on High Lands</i> (1869),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> Hugh
+Macmillan, paying tribute to the beauty of this flower, remarks that "a
+sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmorland mountains measured
+five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour." I have seen it
+approaching that size in Wales.</p>
+
+<p>Another plant which I was anxious to see was the Alpine <i>cerastium</i>
+(mouse-ear chickweed), said to grow "sparingly" on the crags of Striding
+Edge and in a few other places. I failed to find it; but when Mr. Nixon
+had pointed out to me, in a photograph of the Edge, a particular crag on
+which he had noticed the flower in a previous summer, I determined to
+renew the search. This the weather prevented; but in the following year,
+happening to be in Borrowdale in June, I walked from Keswick to the top
+of Helvellyn, and thence descended to Striding Edge, where, on the very
+rock indicated by Mr. Nixon, I found the object of my journey&mdash;not yet
+in flower, for I was somewhat ahead of its season, but authenticated as
+<i>cerastium alpinum</i> by the small oval leaves covered with dense white
+down. I have several times seen, high up on Carnedd Llewelyn, a form of
+<i>cerastium</i> with larger flowers than the common kind; this I think must
+have been what is called <i>c. alpestre</i> in the <i>Flora of Carnarvonshire</i>;
+but the true <i>alpinum</i>, though frequent in the Scottish highlands, is
+decidedly rare in Wales.</p>
+
+<p>Even when the summer is far spent, there is hope for the flower-lover
+among these mountains, especially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> if he penetrate into one of those
+deep fissures&mdash;more characteristic of the Scafell range than of
+Helvellyn&mdash;known locally as "gills": I have in mind the upper portion of
+Grain's Gill, near the summit of the Sty Head Pass, where, on an autumn
+day, one may still see, on either bank of the chasm, a goodly array of
+flowers. Most prevalent, perhaps, are the satiny leaves of the Alpine
+lady's-mantle, which is extraordinarily abundant in this part of the
+Lake District, and forms a thick green carpet on many of the slopes.
+Against this background stand out conspicuously tall spires of
+golden-rod, rich cushions of wild thyme, and clumps of white
+sea-campion, a shore plant which, like thrift, sea-plantain, and
+scurvy-grass, seems almost equally at home on the heights. There, too,
+are the mountain-sorrel, and rose-root; butterworts, with leaves now
+faded to a sickly yellow; tufts of harebell, northern bedstraw and
+hawkweed; stout stalks of angelica; and, best of all, festoons of yellow
+saxifrages, beautiful even in their decay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>GREAT DAYS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I hearing get, who had but ears,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And sight, who had but eyes before;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I moments live, who lived but years.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;"><span class="smcap">Thoreau.</span></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> flower-seeking, as in other sports and sciences, the unexpected is
+always happening; there are rich days and poor days, surprises and
+disappointments; the plant which we hailed as a rarity may prove on
+examination to be but a gay deceiver; and contrariwise, when we think we
+have come home empty-handed, it may turn out that the vasculum contains
+some unrecognized treasure; as when, after what seemed to be a barren
+day on Helvellyn, I found that I had brought back with me the Alpine
+saw-wort.</p>
+
+<p>That in the study of flowers, as in all natural history, we should be
+more attracted by the rare than by the common is inevitable; it is a
+tendency that cannot be escaped or denied, but it may at least be kept
+within bounds, so that familiarity shall not breed the proverbial
+contempt, nor rarity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> a vulgar and excessive admiration.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> The quest
+for the rare, provided that it does not make us forget that the common
+is often no less beautiful, or lead to that selfish acquisitiveness
+which is the bane of "collecting," is a foible harmless in itself and
+even in some cases useful, as inciting us to further activities.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>The sulphur-wort, or "sea hog's-fennel," for instance, is not especially
+attractive&mdash;a big coarse plant, five feet in stature, with a solid stem,
+uncouth masses of grass-like leaves, and large umbels of yellow
+flowers&mdash;yet I have a gratifying recollection of a visit which I once
+paid to its haunts on the Essex salt marshes near Hamford Water. Again,
+the twisted-podded whitlow-grass is a rather shabby-looking little
+crucifer; but the day when I found it under the crags of Snowdon in Cwm
+Glas stands out distinguished and unforgotten. It is natural that we
+should observe more closely what there are fewer opportunities of
+observing.</p>
+
+<p>Let me speak first of the barren days. An old friend of mine who is of
+an optimistic temperament once assured me for my comfort, that the
+flower-seeker must not feel discouraged if he fail in his pursuit; since
+it is not from mere success, but from the effort itself, that benefit is
+derived. The text<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> should run, not "Seek, and ye shall find," but,
+"Seek, and ye shall not <i>need</i> to find." This may be a true doctrine,
+but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time,
+to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that
+there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long
+some of the "wanted" plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade
+discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of
+star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet
+set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or "clustered" saxifrage. In
+like manner among the innumerable flowers of the chalk fields, in the
+South, that elusive little annual, the mouse-tail, has hitherto remained
+undetected. So, too, with many other rarities: the list of the found may
+increase year by year, but that of the <i>un</i>found is never exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>It is well that it is so, and that satiety cannot chill the ardour of
+the flower-lover, but like Ulysses, "always roaming with a hungry
+heart," he has ever before him an object for his pursuit. "Wretched is
+he," says Rousseau, "who has nothing left to wish for." Nor is the
+reward a merely figurative one, such as that of the husbandmen in the
+fable, who, after digging the ground in search of a buried treasure,
+were otherwise recompensed; for the lean days are happily interspersed
+with the fat days, and to the botanist there is surely no joy on earth
+like that of discovering a flower that is new to him;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> it is a thrilling
+event which compensates tenfold for all the failures of the past.</p>
+
+<p>Very remarkable, too, is the freakishness of fortune, which often, while
+denying what you crave, will toss you something quite different and
+unlooked for: I remember how when searching vainly for the spider orchis
+at the foot of the Downs in Kent, I stumbled on an abundance of the
+"green man." Or perhaps, just at the moment when you are relinquishing
+the quest as hopeless, and have put it wholly from your mind, you will
+be startled to see the very flower that you sought.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Burningly it came on me all at once!</span>
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 15%; Margin-left: 3em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">After a life spent training for the sight!</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>As Thoreau expressed it: "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one
+day you come full upon, all the family at dinner."</p>
+
+<p>But the great days! I have sometimes fancied that in those enterprises
+which are to mark the finding of a new flower, one has an inner
+anticipation, a sense of hopefulness and quiet satisfaction that on
+ordinary occasions is lacking. But this assurance must be an instinctive
+one; it is useless to affect a confidence that does not naturally arise;
+for though perseverance is essential, any presumptuous attempt to
+forestall a favourable issue will only lead to discomfiture. Then at
+last, when the goal is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> reached, comes the devotee's reward&mdash;the
+knowledge that is won only by attainment, the ecstasy, the moments that
+are better than years. In this, as in much else, the search for flowers
+is symbolic of the search for truth.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, as they say, succeeds like success; and there are times, in
+this absorbing pursuit, when one piece of good fortune is linked closely
+with another. I shall not easily forget that day on Snowdon, when, after
+meeting for the first time with the Alpine meadow-rue, I almost
+immediately saw my first spiderwort some ten feet above me on the rocky
+cliff, and reached it by building a cairn of stones against the foot of
+the precipice to serve me as a ladder.</p>
+
+<p>Among the great days that have fallen to my lot while following the call
+of the wildflower, one other shall be mentioned&mdash;a fair September
+afternoon when I had wandered for miles about the wide pastures that
+border the Trent, in what seemed to be a fruitless search for the
+meadow-saffron. Already it was time to turn on my homeward journey, when
+I struck into a field from which hay had been carried in the summer; and
+there, scattered around in large clusters of a score or more together,
+some lilac, some white, all with a satiny translucence in the warm
+sunshine which gave them an extraordinary and fairy-like charm, were
+hundreds of the leafless "autumn crocuses," as they are called, though
+in fact the flower is more lovely and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> ethereal than any crocus of the
+garden. Not the day only, but the place itself was glorified by them;
+and now of all those spacious but rather desolate Nottinghamshire
+river-meadows, I remember only that one spot:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I crossed a moor, with a name of its own,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And a certain use in the world, no doubt;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">'Mid the blank miles round about.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Nor are all the great days necessarily of that strenuous sort where
+success can only be achieved by effort; for there are some days which
+may also be called great, or at least memorable, when one attains by
+free gift of fortune to what might long have been searched for in vain.
+I refer to those happy occasions when a friend says: "Look here! I'd
+like to show you that field where the elecampane grows," or, it may be,
+the habitat (the only one in England) of the spring snowflake; or the
+place on Wansfell Pike where the mountain-twayblade lies hidden beneath
+the heather. Such things have befallen me now and then; nor am I likely
+to forget the day when Bertram Lloyd took me to the haunt of the
+creeping toadflax in Oxfordshire; or when, with Sydney Olivier for
+guide, I emerged from the aisles of Wychwood Forest on to some rough
+grassy ground, where in company with meadow crane's-bill, clustered
+bell-flower, and woolly-headed thistle, the blue <i>salvia pratensis</i> was
+flourishing in glorious abundance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For recollection plays a large part in the flower-lover's enjoyment.
+Wordsworth and his daffodils are but a trite quotation; yet many hearts
+besides Wordsworth's have filled with pleasure at the memory of a brave
+array of flowers, or even of a single gallant plant seen in some wild
+locality by mountain, meadow, or shore. The great days were not born to
+be forgotten.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST ROSE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And summer's lease hath all too short a date.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> great days were not born to be forgotten. It is well that memory
+should come to the aid of the flower-lover; for none is more deserving
+of such comfort than he, keeping constant watch as he does over the
+transitoriness of the seasons, and having prescience of the summer's
+departure while summer is still at its height.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sometimes a late autumnal thought</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Has crossed my mind in green July.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It is in the prime of the year that such intimations of mortality are
+keenest; when the "fall" itself has arrived, there is less of regret
+than of resignation. I do not know where the tranquil grief for parted
+loveliness is so tenderly expressed as in a fragmentary poem of
+Shelley's, "The Zucca," which, though little known by the majority of
+readers, contains some of the most poignant, most Shelleyan verses ever
+written. The poet relates how when the Italian summer was dead, and
+autumn was in turn expiring,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> he went forth in grief for the decay of
+that ideal beauty&mdash;"dim object of my soul's idolatry"&mdash;of which he,
+above all men, was the worshipper, and in this mood of sadness found the
+withered gourd which was the subject of his song.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And thus I went lamenting, when I saw</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A plant upon the river's margin lie,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And in despair had cast him down to die.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There is a fitness in such imagery; for flowers seem to serve naturally
+as emblems of human emotions. Who has not felt the pathos of a faded
+blossom kept as a memorial of the past? Many years ago I was given a
+beautifully bound copy of Moxon's edition of <i>Shelley</i>; and when I
+noticed that opposite that loveliest of poems, "Epipsychidion," were a
+few pink petals interleaved, I was sure that their presence at such a
+page was not merely accidental; and it has since been a whim of mine
+that those tokens of some bygone incident in the life of a former owner
+of the book should not be displaced.</p>
+
+<p>There are vicissitudes in human lives with which flowers become
+associated in our thoughts. I recall a calm autumn day spent in company
+with a friend upon the Surrey Downs, when the marjoram and other
+fragrant flowers of the chalk were still as beautiful as in summer, but
+the sadness of a near departure from that familiar district lay heavy
+on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> my mind; and that day proved indeed to be the end of many happy
+years, for long afterwards, when I returned to those hills, all was
+changed for <i>me</i>, though Nature was kindly as before. Thus a date, not
+greatly heeded at the time, may be found to have marked one of life's
+turning-points, and the flowers connected with it may hold a peculiar
+significance in memory.</p>
+
+<p>It is a sad moment for a flower-lover when he sees before him "the last
+rose of summer" ("rose" is a term which may here be used in a general
+sense for any sweet and pleasing flower), and realizes that he is now
+face to face with the season's euthanasia, "that last brief resurrection
+of summer in its most brilliant memorials, a resurrection that has no
+root in the past, nor steady hold upon the future, like the lambent and
+fitful gleams from an expiring lamp." Yet so gradual is this change, and
+the resurrection of which De Quincey speaks so entrancing, that one is
+comforted even while he grieves.</p>
+
+<p>For example, there are few sights more cheering on a late September day
+than to find by some bare tidal river a colony of the marsh-mallow. The
+most admired member of the family is usually the muskmallow; and
+certainly it is a very pretty flower, with its bright foliage and the
+pink satiny sheen of its corolla; but far more charming, though less
+showy in appearance, is its modest sister of the salt marshes, whose
+leaves, overspread with hoary down, are soft as softest velvet, and her
+petals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> steeped in as tender and delicate a tint of palest rose-colour
+as could be imagined in dreams. There is something especially gracious
+about this <i>althæa</i>, or "healer"; and her virtues are not more soothing
+to body than to mind.</p>
+
+<p>It was from the Sussex shingles that I started, and from the same shore
+my concluding picture shall be drawn&mdash;a quaint sea-posy that I picked
+there on an October afternoon, not so romantic, certainly, as one of
+violets or forget-me-nots, but in that sere season not less heartening
+than any nosegay of the spring. It held but three flowers, samphire,
+sea-rocket, and sea-heath. The samphire, at all times a singular and
+attractive herb, was now in fruit, and had faded to a wan yellow; the
+rocket was still in flower, its lilac blossoms crowning the solid
+glaucous stalk, and its thick fleshy leaves rivalling the texture of
+seaweed; the small sea-heath, with wiry reddish stems and dark-green
+foliage, lent itself by a natural contrast for twining around its
+bulkier companions. Thus grouped they stood for weeks in a vase on my
+mantel, until the time for wildflowers was overpast, and the "black and
+tan" days of winter were already let loose on the earth. And even when
+the year is actually at its lowest, the sunnier times can be revived and
+re-enacted in thought; for memory is potent as that wizard in Morris's
+poem, who in the depth of a northern Christmastide could so wondrously
+transform the season,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That through one window men beheld the spring,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And through another saw the summer glow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And through a third the fruited vines a-row;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">While still unheard, but in its wonted way,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Piped the drear wind of that December day.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Such flowery scenes has the writing of this little book brought back to
+me, and has robbed at least one winter of many cheerless hours.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<ul class="none"><li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Alpine bartsia, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">forget-me-not, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">lady's-mantle, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">meadow-rue, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">mouse-ear, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">penny-cress, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">saw-wort, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Amberley Wild Brooks, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Arnside, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>-<a href='#Page_7'>7</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Arundel Park, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Avens, mountain, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">water, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Baneberry, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bellflower, ivy-leaved, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bladderwort, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Borage, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Butterwort, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Carpenter, Edward, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Castleton, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chiltern Hills, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cinquefoil, marsh, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">shrubby, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">vernal, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cloudberry, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crabbe (quoted), <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cranberry, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crow-garlic, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cuckmere Haven, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cwm Glas, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>-<a href='#Page_70'>70</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cwm Idwal, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>-<a href='#Page_70'>70</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dwale, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Farrer, Reginald, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fritillary, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fungi, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gentian, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>;</span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;"> marsh, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">vernal, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gerarde, John, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Globe-flower, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gorse, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hare's-ear, "common," <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;"> slender, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hellebore, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hemlock, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Henbane, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hound's-tongue, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hudson, W. H., <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a> (note), <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hutchinsia, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jefferies, Richard, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Johns, C. A., <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jupp, W. J., <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kinderscout, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>-<a href='#Page_12'>12</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady's-mantle, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Alpine, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Letchworth, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lewes brooks, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>-<a href='#Page_4'>4</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lily of the valley, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lloyd, E. Bertram, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Macmillan, Hugh, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a> (note), <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marjoram, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marsh-cinquefoil, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marsh-mallow, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Meadow-rue, Alpine, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">lesser, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Meadow-sage, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Monk's-hood, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Morris, William, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a> (note), <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Moschatel, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Moss-campion, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mouse-ear, Alpine, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nightshade, deadly, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nixon, Robert, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Norton Common, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nottingham catch-fly, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Olivier, Sir Sydney, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orchis, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>-<a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">bee, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">man, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">musk, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">spider, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>-<a href='#Page_5'>5</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Orme's Head, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pagham Harbour, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pansy, mountain, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Perfoliates, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pevensey, shingles, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">levels, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pilgrim's Way, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pink, proliferous, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Deptford, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">maiden, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pratt, Anne, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Primrose, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">bird's-eye, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">water "violet," <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rampion, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rock-rose, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Saffron, meadow, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">St. John's-worts, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Salmon, C. E., <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Samphire, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sandwort, vernal, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Saw-wort, Alpine, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Saxifrages, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">mossy, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">purple, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>-<a href='#Page_62'>62</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">snow, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">starry, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">yellow, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sheep's scabious, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shelley (quoted), <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>-<a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shoreham shingles, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>-<a href='#Page_4'>4</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Snapdragon, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Snowdon, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>-<a href='#Page_70'>70</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Spiderwort, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Squinancy-wort, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stitchwort, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sweet Cicely, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Teesdale, Upper, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>-<a href='#Page_7'>7</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thistle, "melancholy," <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thoreau, H. D., <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">his <i>Journal</i>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>-<a href='#Page_8'>8</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thorn-apple, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trefoils, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>;</span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 3em;">starry-headed, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Vaughan, Canon J., <a href='#Page_12'>12</a> (note), <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Vetches, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Viper's bugloss, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virgil, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Water-soldier, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">White, Gilbert, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wordsworth, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></span></li>
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wye valley, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yellow-wort, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></span></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Haunts of the Wild Flowers.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Unless it be Canon John Vaughan, in those two delightful
+books of his, <i>The Wild-Flowers of Selborne</i> and <i>The Music of
+Wild-Flowers</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> From Shelley's short lyric, "The Question," perhaps the
+most beautiful flower-poem in the language.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Flora of Surrey</i>, by J. A. Brewer, 1863.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Essay on "Wild Flowers," in <i>The Open Air</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> So, too, had the poet Wordsworth; of whom William Morris,
+who disliked the Wordsworthian cult, used to say, in explanation of such
+antipathy: "The fellow couldn't smell."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See the beautiful chapter on "The Living Garment," in Mr.
+W. H. Hudson's <i>Nature in Downland</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Quoted in <i>A Garden of Herbs</i>, by E. S. Rohde.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> From <i>My Rock Garden</i>, by Reginald Farrer, p. 257.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Æneid</i>, I. 691-4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See note on p. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Natural History of Selborne</i>, ch. lvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Thrice blest, if they but knew what joys are theirs!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>The Herball</i>, by J. Gerarde. Enlarged and amended by
+Thomas Johnson, 1636.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Not so obtuse of heart we Tyrians are.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Rabbits eat the leaves without harm to themselves, but
+their flesh becomes injurious to human beings. A case of poisoning of
+this sort was lately reported from Oxted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> For a charming description of the purple saxifrage, see
+<i>Holidays in High Lands</i>, by Hugh Macmillan (1869).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See <i>The Flora of Carnarvonshire</i>, by John E. Griffith,
+and <i>A Flora of the English Lake District</i>, by J. G. Baker, two books
+which are of great value in showing the localities of mountain plants.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> In Parkinson's <i>Theatrum Botanicum</i> (1640) it is remarked
+of rose-root that it grows "oftentimes in the ruggiest places, and most
+dangerous of them, scarce accessible, and so steepe that they may soon
+tumble downe that doe not very warily looke to their footing."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Wild Flowers of Scotland</i>, by J. H. Crawford.</p></div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In the Cairngorm mountains, the globe-flower ascends to a
+height of 3,000 feet (see Mr. Seton Gordon's <i>Wanderings of a
+Naturalist</i>); in the Alps to 8,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> "This [herb] was choice, because of prime use in medicine;
+and that, more choice, for yielding a rare flavour to pottage; and a
+third choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme
+scarcity."&mdash;Scott's <i>Quentin Durward</i>.</p></div></div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">UNWIN BROTHERS THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Call of the Wildflower
+
+Author: Henry S. Salt
+
+Release Date: November 21, 2010 [EBook #34380]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreaders at fadedpage.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    THE CALL OF THE
+    WILDFLOWER
+
+
+
+
+    _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+    SEVENTY YEARS AMONG SAVAGES. 12s. 6d.
+
+    THE FLOGGING CRAZE. A Statement of the Case
+    against Corporal Punishment. With Foreword by
+    Sir George Greenwood. 3s. 6d. net.
+
+    GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
+
+    ON CAMBRIAN AND CUMBRIAN HILLS.
+    Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scafell. Revised
+    Edition. 5s. net.
+
+    C. W. DANIEL LTD.
+
+    ANIMALS' RIGHTS: Considered in relation to Social
+    Progress. Revised Edition. 2s. 6d.
+
+    DE QUINCEY. Great Writers Series. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    G. BELL & SONS LTD.
+
+    THE LIFE OF HENRY D. THOREAU. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO.
+
+    RICHARD JEFFERIES: His Life and his Ideals. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    JONATHAN CAPE.
+
+    THE LIFE OF JAMES THOMSON, B.V. 2s. 6d. net.
+
+    TREASURES OF LUCRETIUS. Selected Passages
+    translated into English Verse. 1s. 6d. net.
+
+    WATTS & CO.
+
+[Illustration: _G. P. Abraham & Sons._] [_Photo. Keswick_
+
+THE HAUNT OF THE SPIDERWORT
+
+The Devil's Kitchen, Carnarvonshire]
+
+
+
+
+    THE CALL OF THE
+    WILDFLOWER
+
+    BY
+    HENRY S. SALT
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
+    RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.
+
+    _First published in 1922_
+
+    (_All rights reserved_)
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    MY FRIENDS
+
+    W. J. JUPP and E. BERTRAM LLOYD
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+I am indebted to the courtesy of the editors of the _Daily News_, _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, _Liverpool Daily Post_, and _Sussex Daily News_, for
+permission to reprint in this book the substance of articles that first
+appeared in their columns.
+
+My obligation to Jack London, in regard to the choice of a title, will
+be apparent.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+    I. THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER                                      9
+
+    II. ON SUSSEX SHINGLES                                            21
+
+    III. BY DITCH AND DIKE                                            29
+
+    IV. LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE                                        37
+
+    V. BOTANESQUE                                                     43
+
+    VI. THE OPEN DOWNLAND                                             50
+
+    VII. PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE                                    58
+
+    VIII. PICKING AND STEALING                                        63
+
+    IX. ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT                                      68
+
+    X. A SANDY COMMON                                                 77
+
+    XI. QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS                                         85
+
+    XII. HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS                                     90
+
+    XIII. THE SOWER OF TARES                                          97
+
+    XIV. DALES OF DERBYSHIRE                                         103
+
+    XV. NO THOROUGHFARE!                                             113
+
+    XVI. LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS                                 121
+
+    XVII. ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH                              128
+
+    XVIII. A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL                                 133
+
+    XIX. FELONS AND OUTLAWS                                          139
+
+    XX. SOME MARSH-DWELLERS                                          144
+
+    XXI. A NORTHERN MOOR                                             151
+
+    XXII. APRIL IN SNOWDONIA                                         158
+
+    XXIII. FLOWER-GAZING _IN EXCELSIS_                               164
+
+    XXIV. COVES OF HELVELLYN                                         171
+
+    XXV. GREAT DAYS                                                  178
+
+    XXVI. THE LAST ROSE                                              185
+
+    INDEX                                                            191
+
+
+
+
+The Call of the Wildflower
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER
+
+    _Tantus amor florum._
+
+    VIRGIL.
+
+
+THE "call of the wild," where the love of flowers is concerned, has an
+attraction which is not the less powerful because it is difficult to
+explain. The charm of the garden may be strong, but it is not so strong
+as that which draws us to seek for wildflowers in their native haunts,
+whether of shore or water-meadow, field or wood, moorland or mountain. A
+garden is but a "zoo" (with the cruelty omitted); and just as the true
+natural history is that which sends us to study animals in the wilds,
+not to coop them in cages, so the true botany must bring man to the
+flower, not the flower to man.
+
+That the lovers of wildflowers--those, at least, who can give active
+expression to their love--are not a numerous folk, is perhaps not
+surprising; for even a moderate knowledge of the subject demands such
+favourable conditions as free access to nature, with opportunities for
+observation beyond what most persons command; but what they lack in
+numbers they make up in zeal, and to none is the approach of spring more
+welcome than to those who are then on the watch for the reappearance of
+floral friends.
+
+For it is as friends, not garden captives or herbarium specimens, that
+the flower-lover desires to be acquainted with flowers. It is not their
+uses that attract him; _that_ is the business of the herbalist. Nor is
+it their structure and analysis; the botanist will see to that. What he
+craves is a knowledge of the loveliness, the actual life and character
+of plants in their relation to man--what may be called the spiritual
+aspect of flowers--and this is seen and felt much more closely when they
+are sought in their free wild state than when they are cultivated on
+rockery or in parterre.
+
+The reality of this love of wildflowers is evident, but its cause and
+meaning are less easy to discern. Is it only part of a modern "return to
+nature," or a sign of some latent sympathy between plant and man? We do
+not know; but we know that our interest in flowers is no longer
+utilitarian, as in the herbalism of a bygone time, or decorative and
+aesthetic, as in the immemorial use of the garland on festive occasions,
+and in the association of the wine-cup with the rose. The "great
+affection" that Chaucer felt for the daisy marked a new era; and later
+poets have carried the sentiment still further, till it reached a climax
+in the faith that Wordsworth avowed:
+
+    One impulse from a vernal wood
+      May teach you more of man,
+    Of moral evil and of good,
+      Than all the sages can.
+
+Here is a new herbalism--of the heart. We smile nowadays at the
+credulity of the old physicians, who rated so highly the virtues of
+certain plants as to assert, for example, that comfrey--the "great
+consound," as they called it--had actual power to unite and solidify a
+broken bone. But how if there be flowers that can in very truth make
+whole a broken spirit? Even in the Middle Ages it was recognized that
+mental benefit was to be gained from this source, as when betony was
+extolled for its value in driving away despair, and when _fuga daemonum_
+was the name given to St. John's-wort, that golden-petaled amulet which,
+when hung over a doorway, could put all evil spirits to flight. That,
+like many another flower, it can put "the blues" to flight, is a fact
+which no modern flower-lover will doubt.
+
+But what may be called the anthropocentric view of wildflowers is now
+happily becoming obsolete. "Their beauty was given them for our
+delight," wrote Anne Pratt in one of the pleasantest of her books:[1]
+"God sent them to teach us lessons of Himself." It would somewhat spoil
+our joy in the beauty of wildflowers if we thought they had been "sent,"
+like potted plants from a nursery, for any purpose whatsoever; for it is
+their very naturalness, their independence of man, that charms us, and
+our regard for them is less the prosaic satisfaction of an owner in his
+property, than the love of a friend, or even the worship of a devotee:
+
+    The devotion to something afar
+      From the sphere of our sorrow.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Haunts of the Wild Flowers._]
+
+This, I think, is the true gospel of the love of flowers, though as yet
+it has found but little expression in the literature of the subject.
+"Flowers as flowers," was Thoreau's demand, when he lamented in his
+journal that there was no book which treated of them in that light, no
+real "biography" of plants. The same want is felt by the English reader
+to-day: there is no writer who has done for the wildflower what Mr. W.
+H. Hudson has done for the bird.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: Unless it be Canon John Vaughan, in those two delightful
+books of his, _The Wild-Flowers of Selborne_ and _The Music of
+Wild-Flowers_.]
+
+Indeed, the books mostly fail, not only to portray the life of the
+plant, but even to give an intelligible account of its habitat and
+appearance; for very few writers, however sound their technical
+knowledge, possess the gift of lucid description--a gift which depends,
+in its turn, upon that sympathy with other minds which enables an author
+to see precisely what instruction is needed. Thus it often happens
+that, unless personal help is available, it is a matter of great
+difficulty for a beginner to learn the haunts of flowers, or to
+distinguish them when found; for when he refers to the books he finds
+much talk about inessential things, and little that goes directly to the
+point.
+
+One might have thought that a new and strange flower would attract the
+eye more readily than a known one, but it is not so; the old is detected
+much more easily than the new. "Out of sight, out of mind," says the
+proverb; and conversely that which is not yet in mind will long tarry
+out of sight. But when once a new flower, even a rare one, has been
+discovered, it is curious how often it will soon be noticed afresh in
+another place: this, I think, must be the experience of all who have
+made systematic search for flowers, and it explains why the novice will
+frequently see but little where the expert will see much.
+
+Not until the various initial obstacles have been overcome can one
+appreciate the true "call of the wild," the full pleasures of the chase.
+When we have learnt not only what plants are to be looked for, but those
+two essential conditions, the _when_ and the _where_; the rule of season
+and of soil; the flowers that bloom in spring, in summer, or in autumn;
+the flowers that grow by shore, meadow, bog, river, or mountain; on
+chalk, limestone, sand, or clay--then the quest becomes more effective,
+and each successive season will add materially to our widening circle
+of acquaintance.
+
+Then, too, we may begin to discard that rather vapid class of
+literature, the popular flower-book, which too often deals sentimentally
+in vague descriptions of plants, diversified with bad illustrations, and
+with edifying remarks about the goodness of the Creator, and may find a
+new and more rational interest in the published _Floras_ of such
+counties or districts as have yet received that distinction. For dry
+though it is in form, a _Flora_, with its classified list of plants, and
+its notes collected from many sources, past and present, as to their
+"stations" in the county, becomes an almost romantic book of adventure,
+when the student can supply the details from his own knowledge, and so
+read with illumination "between the lines." Here, let us suppose it to
+be said, is a locality where grows some rare and beautiful flower, one
+of the prizes of the chase. What hopes and aspirations such an assurance
+may arouse! What encouragement to future enterprise! What regrets, it
+may be, for some almost forgotten omission in the past, which left that
+very neighbourhood unsearched! It is possible that a cold,
+matter-of-fact entry in a local _Flora_ will thus throw a sudden light
+on some bygone expedition, and show us that if we had but taken a
+slightly different direction in our walk--but it is vain to lament what
+is irreparable!
+
+Of such musings upon the might-have-been I can myself speak with
+feeling, for I was not so fortunate in my youth as to be initiated into
+the knowledge of flowers: it was not till much later in life, as I
+wandered among the Welsh and English mountains, that the scales fell
+from my eyes, and looking on the beauty of the saxifrages I realized
+what glories I had missed. Thus I was compelled to put myself to school,
+so to speak, and to make a study of wildflowers with the aid of such
+books as were available, a process which, like a botanical Jude the
+Obscure, I found by no means easy. The self-educated man, we know, is
+apt to be perverse and opinionated; so I trust my readers will make due
+allowance if they notice such faults in this book. I can truly plead, as
+the illiterate do, that "I'm no scholar, more's the pity." But it was my
+friends and acquaintances--those, at least, who had some botanical
+knowledge--who were the chief sufferers during this period of inquiry;
+and, looking back, I often marvel at the patience with which they
+endured the problems with which I confronted them. I remember waylaying
+my friend, W. J. Jupp, a very faithful flower-lover, with some mutilated
+and unrecognizable labiate plant which I thought might be calamint, and
+how tactfully he suggested that my conjecture was "near enough." On
+another occasion it was Edward Carpenter, the Sage of Millthorpe, or
+Wild Sage, as some botanical friend once irreverently described him,
+who volunteered to assist me, by means of a scientific book which shows,
+by an unerring process, how to eliminate the wrong flowers, until at the
+end you are left with the right one duly named. All through the list we
+went; but there must have been a slip somewhere; for in the conclusion
+one thing alone was clear--that whatever my plant might be, it was not
+that which the scientific book indicated. Of all my friends and helpers,
+Bertram Lloyd, whose acquaintance with wildflowers is unusually large,
+and to whom, in all that pertains to natural history, I am as the "gray
+barbarian" (_vide_ Tennyson) to "the Christian child," was the most
+constant and long-suffering: he solved many of my enigmas, and
+introduced me to some of his choicest flower-haunts among the Chiltern
+Hills. In the course of my researches I was sometimes referred for
+guidance to persons who were known in their respective home-circles as
+"the botanists of the family," a title which I found was not quite
+equivalent to that of "the complete botanist." There was one "botanist
+of the family" who was visibly embarrassed when I asked her the name of
+a plant that is common on the chalk hills, but is so carelessly
+described in the books as to be easily confused with other kindred
+species. She gazed at it long, with a troubled eye, and then, as if
+feeling that her domestic reputation must at all hazards be upheld,
+replied firmly: "Hemp-nettle." Hemp-nettle it was not; it was wild
+basil; but years after, when I began to have similar questions put to
+myself, I realized how disconcerting it is to be thus suddenly
+interrogated. It made me understand why Cabinet Ministers so frequently
+insist that they must have "notice of that Question." With one complete
+botanist, however, I was privileged to become acquainted, Mr. C. E.
+Salmon, whose special diocese, so to speak, is the county of Surrey, but
+whose intimate knowledge of wildflowers extends to many counties and
+coasts. Not a few favours did I receive from him, in certifying for me
+some of the more puzzling plants; and very good-naturedly he bore the
+disappointment when, on his asking me to send him, for his _Flora of
+Surrey_, a list of the rarer flowers in the neighbourhood where I was
+living, I included among them the small bur-parsley (_caucalis
+daucoides_), a vanished native, a prodigal son of the county, whose
+return would have been a matter for gladness. But alas, my plant was not
+a _caucalis_ at all, but a _torilis_, a squat weed of the cornfields,
+which by its superficial resemblance to its rare cousin had grossly
+imposed upon my ignorance. It is when he has acquired some familiarity
+with the ordinary British plants that a flower-lover, thus educated late
+in life, finds his thoughts turning to the vanished opportunities of the
+past. I used to speculate regretfully on what I had missed in my early
+wanderings in wild places; as in the Isle of Skye, where I picked up the
+eagle's feather, but overlooked the mountain flower; or on Ben Lawers,
+a summit rich in rare Alpines to which I then was stone-blind; or in a
+score of other localities which I can scarcely hope to revisit. But
+time, which heals all things, brought me a sort of compensation for
+these delinquencies; for with a fuller knowledge of plants I could to
+some extent reconstruct in imagination the sights that were formerly
+unseen, and with the eye of faith admire the Alpine forget-me-not on the
+ridges of Ben Lawers, or the yellow butterwort in the marshes of Skye.
+Nor was it always in imagination only; for sometimes a friend would send
+me a rare flower from some distant spot; and then there was pleasure
+indeed in the opening of the parcel and in anticipating what it might
+contain--the pasque-flower perhaps, or the wild tulip, or the Adonis, or
+the golden samphire, or some other of the many local treasures that make
+glad the flower-lover's heart. The exhibitions of wildflowers that are
+now held in the public libraries of not a few towns are extremely
+useful, and often awake a love of nature in minds where it has hitherto
+been but dormant. A queer remark was once made to me by a visitor at the
+Brighton show. "This is a good institution," he said. "It saves you from
+tramping for the flowers yourself." I had not regarded the exhibition in
+that light; on the contrary, it stimulates many persons to a pursuit
+which is likely to fascinate them more and more.
+
+For no tramps can be pleasanter than those in quest of wildflowers;
+especially if one has a fellow-enthusiast for companion: failing that,
+it is wiser to go alone; for when a flower-lover tramps with someone who
+has no interest in the pursuit, the result is likely to be
+discomfiting--he must either forgo his own haltings and deviations, with
+the probability that he will miss something valuable, or he must feel
+that he is delaying his friend. In a company, I always pray that their
+number may be uneven, and that it may not be necessary to march stolidly
+in pairs, where "one to one is cursedly confined," as Dryden said of
+matrimony; or worst of all, where one's yoke-fellow may insist, as
+sometimes happens, on walking "in step," and be forever shuffling his
+feet as if obeying the commands of some invisible drill-sergeant. It is
+not with the feet that we should seek harmony, but with the heart. My
+intention in this book is to speak of the more noteworthy flowers of a
+few distinctive localities that are known to me, starting from the coast
+of Sussex, and ascending to the high mountains of Wales and the
+north-west: I propose also to intersperse the descriptive chapters, here
+and there with discussions of such special topics as may incidentally
+arise. And here, at the outset, I was tempted to say a few words about
+my own favourite flowers--not such universally admired beauties as the
+primrose, violet, daffodil, hyacinth, forget-me-not, and the others,
+whose names will readily suggest themselves; for, lovely as they are,
+it would be superfluous to add to their praises; but rather of some less
+famous plants, the saints and anchorites of the floral world, the
+flower-lover's flowers--not the popular, but the best-beloved. On second
+thoughts, however, I will leave these choicest ones, with a single
+exception, to be mentioned in their due place and surroundings, and will
+here name but one of them, a flower which is among the first, not only
+in the order of merit, but in the order of the seasons.
+
+The greater stitchwort, as writers tell us, is one of "the most
+ornamental of our early flowers"; but surely it is something more than
+that. The radiance of those white stars that stud the hedge-banks and
+road-sides in April and May, is dearer to some of us than many of the
+more favoured blossoms that poets have sung of. The dull English name
+quite fails to do justice to the almost ethereal lustre of the flower:
+the Latin _stellaria_ is truer and more expressive. The reappearance of
+the stitchwort, like that of the orange-tip butterfly, is one of the
+keenest joys of spring; and one of our keenest regrets in spring is that
+the stitchwort's flowering-season is so short.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ON SUSSEX SHINGLES
+
+    Salt and splendid from the circling brine.
+
+    SWINBURNE.
+
+
+WHERE should a flower-lover begin his story if not from the sea shore?
+Earth has been poetically described as "daughter of ocean"; and the
+proximity of the sea has a most genial and stimulating effect upon its
+grandchildren the flowers, not those only that are peculiar to the
+beach, but also the inland kinds. There is no "dead sea" lack of
+vegetation on our coasts, but a marked increase both in the luxuriance
+of plants and in their beauty.
+
+Sussex is rich in "shingles"--flat expanses of loose pebbles formerly
+thrown up by the waves, and now lying well above high-water mark, or
+even stretching landward for some distance. One might have expected
+these stony tracts to be barren in the extreme; in fact they are the
+nursery-ground of a number of interesting flowers, including some very
+rare ones; and in certain places, where the stones are intersected by
+banks of turf, the eye is surprised by a veritable garden in the
+wilderness. Let us imagine ourselves on one of these shingle-beds in the
+early summer, when the show of flowers is at its brightest: and first at
+Shoreham--"Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years," as Swinburne
+described it.
+
+Alas! the Shoreham beach, which until less than twenty years ago was in
+a natural state, has been so overbuilt with ship-works and bungalows
+that it has become little else than a suburb of Brighton; yet even now
+the remaining strip of shingle, stretching for half a mile between sea
+and harbour, is the home of some delightful plants. In the more favoured
+spots the gay mantle thrown over the stony strand is visible at the
+first glance in a wonderful blending of colours--the gold of horned
+poppy, stonecrop, melilot, and kidney vetch; the white of sea-campion;
+the delicate pink of thrift; and the fiery reds and blues of the
+gorgeous viper's bugloss--and when a nearer scrutiny is made, a number
+of minute plants will be found growing in close company along the grassy
+ridges. The most attractive of these are the graceful little spring
+vetch (_vicia lathyroides_), the rue-leaved saxifrage, and that tiny
+turquoise gem which is apt to escape notice, the dwarf forget-me-not--a
+trio of the daintiest blossoms, red, white, and blue, that eyes could
+desire to behold.
+
+Shoreham has long been famous for its clovers; and some are still in
+great force there, especially the rigid trefoil (_trifolium scabrum_),
+and its congener, _trifolium striatum_, with which it is often confused,
+while the better-known hare's-foot also covers a good deal of the
+ground. But there is a sad tale to tell of the plant which once the
+chief pride of these shingles, the starry-headed trefoil, a very lovely
+pink flower fringed with silky hairs, which, though not a native, has
+been naturalized near the bank of the harbour since 1804, but now, owing
+to the enclosures made for ship-building works, has been all but
+exterminated. "This," wrote the author of the _Flora of Sussex_ (1907)
+"is one of the most beautiful of our wildflowers, and is found in
+Britain at Shoreham only. Fortunately it is very difficult to extirpate
+any of the _leguminosae_, and it may therefore be hoped that it may long
+continue to adorn the beach at Shoreham." The hope seems likely to be
+frustrated. Among the rubble of concrete slabs, and piles of timber,
+only three or four tufts of the trefoil were surviving last year, with
+every likelihood of these also disappearing as the place is further
+"developed." The second of the Shoreham rarities, the pale yellow vetch
+(_vicia lutea_) has fared better, owing to its wider range, and is still
+scattered freely over the yet unenclosed shingles. It is a charming
+flower; but its doom in Sussex seems to be inevitable, for the
+bungalows, with their back-yards, tennis-courts, "tradesmen's
+entrances," and other amenities of villadom, will doubtless continue to
+encroach upon what was once a wild and unsullied tract.
+
+Still sadder is the fate of the devastated coast on the Brighton side of
+the harbour-mouth, where the low cliffs that overlook the lagoon from
+Southwick to Fisher's-gate have long been known to botanists as worthy
+of some attention. Here, on the grassy escarpment, the rare Bithynian
+vetch used once to grow, as we learn from Mrs. Merrifield's interesting
+_Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton_ (1860); and here we may
+still find such plants as the sea-radish, a large coarse crucifer with
+yellow flowers and queer knotted seed-pods; the blue clary, or
+wild-sage, running riot in great profusion; the fragrant soft-leaved
+fennel; the strange star-thistle (_calcitrapa_), so-called from its
+fancied resemblance to an ancient and diabolical military instrument,
+the caltrop, an iron ball armed with sharp points, which was thrown on
+the ground to maim the horses in a cavalry charge; the pale-flowered
+narrow-leaved flax; and lastly, that rather uncanny shrub of the
+poisonous nightshade order, with small purple flowers and scarlet
+berries, which is called the "tea-tree," though the tea which its leaves
+might furnish would hardly make a palatable brew.
+
+Below these cliffs, on an embankment that divides the waters of the
+lagoon from the seashore, there still flourishes in plenty the fleshy
+leaved samphire, once sought after for a pickle, and ever famous through
+the reference in _King Lear_ to "one who gathers samphire, dreadful
+trade." In this locality there is no dreadful trade, except that of
+reducing a once pleasant shore to an unsightly slag-heap.
+
+Let me now turn from this melancholy spectacle to those Sussex shingles
+on which the Admiralty and the contractor have not as yet laid a heavy
+and ruinous hand. On some of the more spacious of these pebbly beaches,
+as on that which lies between Eastbourne and Pevensey, the traveller may
+still experience the feeling expressed by Shelley:
+
+        I love all waste
+    And solitary places, where we taste
+    The pleasure of believing what we see
+    Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
+
+From Langney Point one looks north-east along a desolate shore, beyond
+which the ruins of Pevensey Castle are seen in the distance, and the
+width of the shingly belt between the sea and the high-road is at this
+point scarcely less than a mile. A scene that is bleak and barren enough
+in its general aspect; but a search soon reveals the presence of floral
+treasures, the first of which is a rather rare member of the Pink
+family, the soapwort, which I had long sought in vain until I met with
+it growing in abundance close to the outskirts of Eastbourne, where it
+roots so luxuriantly in the loose shingles as to make one wonder why it
+is so fastidious elsewhere. Among other noticeable inhabitants of these
+flats, or of the shallow marshy depressions which they enclose, are
+hairy crowfoot, catmint, white melilot, stinking groundsel,
+strawberry-headed trefoil, and candytuft--the last-named a rather
+unexpected flower in such a place.
+
+Still nearer to the sea, not many yards removed from the spray of the
+waves at their highest, the wild seakale is plentiful; a stout glabrous
+cabbage, with thick curly leaves and white cruciferous blossoms, it
+rises straight out of the bare stones, and thrives exceedingly when the
+folk who stroll along the shore can so far restrain their destructive
+tendencies as not to hack and mangle it. In its company, perhaps, or in
+similar situations, will be seen its first-cousin, the sea-rocket, a
+quaint and pleasant crucifer with zigzag stems, fleshy leaves, and pale
+lilac petals. The sea-pea, formerly native near Pevensey, is now hardly
+to be hoped for.
+
+One of the most naturally attractive spots on the Sussex coast is
+Cuckmere Haven, near Seaford, a gap in the chalk cliffs, about half a
+mile in width, through which the river Cuckmere finds a dubious exit to
+the sea. Were it not for the abomination of the rifle-butts, which
+sometimes close the shore to the public, no more delectable nook could
+be desired; and to the flower-lover the little shelf of shingle which
+forms the beach is full of charm. Here, growing along the grassy margin
+of brackish pools, and itself so like a flowering grass that a sharp eye
+is needed to detect it, one may find that singular umbelliferous
+plant--not at all resembling the other members of its tribe--the slender
+hare's-ear (_bupleurum tenuissimum_), thin, wiry, dark-green, with
+narrow lance-like leaves and minute yellow umbels. Near by, the small
+sea-heath, one of the prettiest of maritime flowers, makes a dense
+carpet; on the corner of the adjacent cliff the lesser and rarer
+sea-lavender (_statice binervosa_) is plentiful, and in the late summer
+blooms at a considerable height on the narrow ledges.
+
+Pagham "Harbour," a wild estuary of some extent, between Selsey and
+Bognor, is another locality that has earned a reputation for its
+flowers, the most remarkable of which is the very local proliferous
+pink, which has long been known as abundant on that portion of the
+coast, though elsewhere very infrequent. A pleasant walk of about three
+miles leads from Bognor to Pagham, along a sandy shore fringed with very
+luxuriant tamarisk-bushes; and when one reaches the stony reef where
+further progress is barred by the waters or sand-shoals of the
+"Harbour," the little pink, which bears a superficial resemblance to
+thrift, will be seen springing up freely among the pebbles. We are told
+that only one of its blossoms opens at a time; but this is the sort of
+statement, often copied from book to book, which is not verified by
+experience, or to which at least many exceptions must be admitted. What
+is certain is that the proliferous pink has a considerable share of the
+distinctive grace of its family, and that the occasion of first
+encountering it will live in the flower-lover's memory.
+
+I have named but a few--those personally known to me--of the rarer or
+more characteristic shingle-flowers; and in so wide a field there is
+always the chance of new discoveries: hence the unfailing interest, to
+the botanist, of places which, apart from their flora, are likely to be
+shunned as wearisome. The shore itself is seldom without visitors; but
+the shingles that stretch back from the shore rarely attract the
+footsteps even of the hardiest walkers. It is only when there has been a
+murder in one of those solitary spots--or at least something that the
+newspapers can describe as "dramatic" or "sensational"--that the
+holiday-folk in the neighbouring towns forsake for a day or two the
+pleasures of pier or parade, and sally forth over the stony wildernesses
+in a search for "clues"; as when the "Crumbles," near Eastbourne, was
+the scene, two years ago, of a murder, and at a later date of a ghost.
+To discover the foot of some partially buried victim protruding from the
+pebbles--_that_ is deemed a sufficient object for a pilgrimage. The gold
+of the sea-poppy and the pink of the thrift are trifles that are passed
+unseen.
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+BY DITCH AND DIKE
+
+          On either side
+    Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide.
+
+    CRABBE.
+
+
+"LEVELS," or "brooks," is the name commonly given in Sussex to a number
+of grassy tracts, often of wide extent, which, though still in a state
+of semi-wildness, have been so far reclaimed from primitive fens as to
+afford a rough pasturage for horses and herds of cattle, the ground
+being drained and intersected by dikes and sluggish streams. In these
+spacious and unfrequented flats wildfowl of various kinds are often to
+be seen; herons stand motionless by the pools, or flap slowly away if
+disturbed in their meditation; pewits wheel and cry overhead; and the
+redshank, most clamorous of birds during the nesting-season, makes such
+a din as almost to distract the attention of the intruding botanist. For
+it is the botanist who is specially drawn to these wild water-ways,
+where hours may be profitably spent in strolling beside the brooks, with
+the certainty of seeing many interesting plants and the chance of
+finding some unfamiliar ones; nor is there anything to mar his
+enjoyment, except the possible meeting with a bull on a wide arena from
+which there is no ready exit, save by jumping a muddy ditch or by
+crossing one of the narrow and precarious planks which do duty as
+footbridges.
+
+These "levels," though often bordering on a tidal river, are not
+themselves salt marshes, nor is their flora a maritime one; in that
+respect they differ from the East-coast fens described by Crabbe in one
+of his _Tales_, "The Lover's Journey"; a passage which has been praised
+as one of the best pictures ever given of dike-land scenery. There are
+lines in it which might be quoted of the Sussex as well as of the
+Suffolk marsh-meadows; but for me the verses are spoiled by the
+strangely apologetic tone which the poet assumed in speaking of the
+local plants:
+
+    The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread
+    Partake the nature of their fenny bed.
+
+And so on. Did he think that his polite readers expected to hear of
+sweet peas and carnations beautifying the desolate mud-banks? The
+"dulness" seems to be--well, not on the part of the flowers. "Dull as
+ditchwater," they say. But ditchwater flowers are far from dull.
+
+Of Sussex marshes the most extensive are the Pevensey Levels; but the
+most pleasantly situated are those that lie just south of Lewes, where
+the valley of the Ouse widens into an oval plain before it narrows
+again towards Newhaven. From the central part of this alluvial basin the
+view is very striking all around; for the estuary seems to be everywhere
+enclosed, except to seaward, by the great smooth slopes of the chalk
+Downs. On its west side are three picturesque villages, Iford, Rodmell,
+and Southease, with churches and farms lying on the very verge of the
+"brooks": at the head, the quaint old houses and castle of Lewes rise
+conspicuous like a mediaeval town.
+
+But to whichever of these watery wastes the flower-lover betakes
+himself, he will not lack for occupation. One of the first friends to
+greet him in the early summer, by the Lewes levels, will be the charming
+_Hottonia_, or "water-violet," as it is misnamed; for though the petals
+are pink, its yellow eye and general form proclaim it to be of the
+_primulaceae_, and "water-primrose" should by preference be its title.
+There are few prettier sights than a company of these elegant flowers
+rising clear above the surface, their slender stems bearing whorls of
+the pink blossoms, while the dark green featherlike leaves remain
+submerged. This "featherfoil," as it is sometimes called, is as lovely
+as the primrose of the woods.
+
+Companions or near neighbours of the _Hottonia_ are the arrow-head, at
+once recognized by its bold sagittate leaves, and the frog-bit, another
+flower of three white petals, whose small reniform foliage, floating on
+the brooks, gives it the appearance of a dwarf water-lily. By no means
+common, but growing in profusion where it grows at all, the dainty
+little frog-bit, once met with, always remains a favourite. The true
+water-lilies, both the white and the yellow, are also native on the
+levels; so, too, is the quaint water-milfoil, with its much-cut
+submerged leaves resembling those of the featherfoil, and its numerous
+erect flower-spikes dotting the surface of the pools. All these
+water-nymphs may be seen simultaneously blossoming in June.
+
+More prominent than such small aquatics are the tall-growing kinds which
+lift their heads two or three feet above the waters. Of these quite the
+handsomest is the flowering rush (_butomus_), stately and pink-petaled;
+among the rest are the two water-plantains (the lesser one rather
+uncommon); the water-speedwell, a gross and bulky _veronica_ which lacks
+the charm of its smaller relative the brook-lime; and the queer
+mare's-tails, which in the midst of a running stream look like a number
+of tiny fir-trees out of their element. The umbelliferous family is also
+well represented. Wild celery is there; and the showy water-parsnip
+(_sium_); the graceful tubular water-dropwort, and its big neighbour the
+horse-bane, which in some places swells to an immense size in the centre
+of the ditches. On the margin grows the pretty trailing money-wort, or
+"creeping Jenny"; and with it, maybe, the white-blossomed brook-weed, or
+water-pimpernel, which at first sight has more likeness to the
+crucifers than to its real relatives the primroses, and is thus apt to
+puzzle those by whom it has not previously been encountered.
+
+Rambling beside these so-called brooks, which are mostly not brooks but
+channels of almost stagnant water, one cannot fail to remark the
+clannishness of many of the flowers: they grow in groups, monopolizing
+nearly the whole length of a ditch, and making a show by their united
+array of leaves or blossoms. In one part, perhaps, the slim water-violet
+predominates; then, as you turn a corner, a long vista of arrow-heads
+meets the eye, nothing but arrow-heads between bank and bank, their
+sharp, barbed foliage topping the surface in a phalanx: or again, you
+may come upon fifty yards of frog-bit, a multitude of small green
+bucklers that entirely hide the water; or a radiant colony of
+water-lilies, whose broad leaves make the intrusion of other aquatics
+scarcely possible, and provide a cool pavement for wagtail and moorhen
+to walk on. It is noticeable, too, that the lesser water-plantain,
+unlike the greater, is almost confined to one section of the levels; and
+in like manner the brook-weed and the burmarigold have each occupied for
+their headquarters the banks of a particular dike.
+
+The fringed buckbean (_villarsia_) is said to be an inhabitant of these
+brooks. I have not seen it there; but it may be found, sparsely, in the
+river Ouse, a short distance above Lewes, where its round leaves float
+on the quiet backwaters like those of a large frog-bit or a small
+water-lily, though the botanists tell us it is a gentian. I remember
+that on the first occasion when I saw it there, on a late summer day,
+there was only a single blossom left, and as that was on a deep pool,
+several yards from the bank, there was no choice but to swim for it. The
+great yellow cress (_nasturtium amphibium_), a glorified cousin of the
+familiar water-cress, is also native on the Ouse above Lewes, less
+frequently below.
+
+More spacious than the Lewes levels, but drearier, and on the whole less
+interesting, are those of Pevensey, which cover a wide tract to the east
+of Hailsham, formerly an inlet of the sea, where the sites of the few
+homesteads that rise above the flat meadows, such as Chilley and
+Horse-eye, were once islands in the bay. Walking north from Pevensey, by
+a road which traverses this inhospitable flat, one sees the walls of
+Hurstmonceux Castle in front, on what was originally the coast-line; on
+either side of the highway is a maze of ditches and dikes, among which
+rare flowers are to be found, notably the broad-leaved pepperwort, the
+largest and most remarkable of its family, and the great spearwort, said
+to be locally plentiful near Hurstmonceux. The bladderwort, reputed
+common on these marshes, seems to have become much scarcer than it was
+twenty years back.
+
+For other flowers, other fenny tracts may be sought; Henfield Common,
+for instance, has the bog-bean, the marsh St. John's-wort, and still
+better, the marsh-cinquefoil. But of all Sussex water-meadows with which
+I am acquainted the richest are the Amberley Wild Brooks, which lie
+below Pulborough, adjacent to the tidal stream of the Arun, a piece of
+partially drained bog-land which in a wet winter season is apt to be
+flooded anew, and to revert to its primitive state of swamp. It is a
+glorious place to wander over, on a sunny August afternoon, with the
+great escarpment of the Downs, and the ever-prominent Chanctonbury Ring,
+close in view to the south; and in a long summer day the expedition can
+be combined with a visit to Arundel Park, only three miles distant, the
+best of parks, as being the least parklike and most natural, and having
+a goodly store of the wildflowers that are dwellers upon chalk hills.
+
+The Amberley Wild Brooks possess this great merit, that in addition to
+most of the aquatics and dike-land plants above-mentioned, they present
+a fine display of the tall riverside flowers. Their wet hollows that
+teem with frog-bit, arrow-head, water-parsnip, water-plantain, yellow
+cress, glaucous stitchwort, and other choice things, are fringed here
+and there with purple loosestrife, and with marsh-woundwort almost equal
+to the loosestrife in size and colour; and mingling with these in like
+luxuriance are yellow loosestrife, tansy, toadflax, and water-ragwort--a
+brilliant combination of purple flowers and gold. Then, as if the
+better to set off this spectacle, there is in some places a background
+of staid and massive herbs like the great water-dock,
+
+    And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
+    As soothe the dazzled eye with sober sheen.[3]
+
+One would fear that this wealth of diverse hues might even become
+embarrassing, were it not that the heart of the flower-lover is
+insatiable.
+
+[Footnote 3: From Shelley's short lyric, "The Question," perhaps the
+most beautiful flower-poem in the language.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LIKENESSES THAT BAFFLE
+
+    Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.
+
+    _The Comedy of Errors._
+
+
+ONE of the first difficulties by which those who would learn their
+native flora are beset is the likeness which in some cases exists
+between one plant and another--not the close resemblance of kindred
+species, such as that found, for instance, among the brambles or the
+hawkweeds, which is necessarily a matter for expert discrimination, but
+the superficial yet often puzzling similarity in what botanists call the
+"habit" of wildflowers. Thus the horse-shoe vetch may easily be
+mistaken, by a beginner, for the bird's-foot trefoil, or the field
+mouse-ear chickweed for the greater stitchwort; and the differences
+between the dove's-foot crane's-bill and the less common _geranium
+pusillum_ are not at first sight very apparent. Distinguishing features
+instantly recognized by an expert, who has taken, so to speak,
+finger-tip impressions of the plants, do not readily present themselves
+to the layman, whose only guide is the general testimony of structure,
+colour, and height.
+
+It is, moreover, unfortunate that some of the popular flower-books,
+owing to the slovenly way in which their descriptions are worded, are of
+little help; they not only fail to give the needed particulars where
+there is a real likeness, but often, where there is none, create
+confusion in the reader's mind by depicting quite dissimilar plants in
+almost identical terms. In Johns's _Flowers of the Field_ (edition of
+1908), for example, the description of hedge-woundwort hardly differs
+verbally from that of black horehound, and might certainly mislead a
+novice who was studying hedgerow flowers. The same writer had an
+exasperating habit of repeatedly stating that various plants are "well
+distinguished" by certain features, when in fact it is very difficult,
+from the accounts given by him, to distinguish them at all!
+
+An earlier and better writer, Anne Pratt, did make an effort in her
+_Haunts of the Wild Flowers_ to indicate the chief characteristics, as
+between the sea-plantain and the sea-arrowgrass, the hemp-agrimony and
+the valerian; but even she, when some of the labiate flowers were in
+question, dismissed them, not very helpfully, as "all growing in
+abundance, but so much alike that it needs a knowledge of botany to
+distinguish them from each other"! I have known a case where, owing to a
+picturesque but inaccurate account, in the same book, the Welsh
+stonecrop (_sedum Forsterianum_) was confused with the marsh St.
+John's-wort, which has leaves that bear a curious resemblance to those
+of the _sedum_ tribe.
+
+Even writers of botanical handbooks seem not to realize with what
+difficulties the uninitiated are faced, in regard to certain groups of
+plants where the several species, though quite distinct, bear a strong
+family likeness. The chamomiles, for instance, might well receive some
+special treatment in books; for it is no simple matter to assign their
+proper names to some four or five of the clan--the true chamomile, the
+wild chamomile, the corn chamomile, the stinking chamomile, and the
+"scentless" mayweed, which is _not_ scentless. Many of the umbellifers
+also are notoriously difficult to identify; and among leguminous plants
+there is a bewildering similarity between black medick, or "nonsuch,"
+and the lesser clover (_trifolium minus_), which in turn is liable to be
+confused with the popular hop-clover or with the slender and fairy-like
+_trifolium filiforme_. "Small examples of _t. minus_," said a well-known
+botanist, Mr. H. C. Watson, "are so frequently misnamed _t. filiforme_,
+that I trust only my own eyes for it."[4] "As like as two peas" is a
+saying which finds fulfilment in these and other examples.
+
+[Footnote 4: _Flora of Surrey_, by J. A. Brewer, 1863.]
+
+The clovers are indeed a perplexing family; and it is not surprising
+that the identification of the "shamrock" has given cause for dispute.
+Two of the smaller trefoils, for example, _trifolium scabrum_ and
+_striatum_, so closely resemble each other that a novice fails to
+appreciate the assurance given in the _Flora of Kent_ that they "can
+very easily be separated." It is doubtless easy to separate one twin
+from another twin, Dromio of Ephesus from Dromio of Syracuse, when once
+you know how to do so; but until you have acquired that knowledge there
+is material for a "comedy of errors." The majority of folk are much more
+apt to confuse plants than to distinguish them: witness such names as
+"fool's-parsley" and "fool's-watercress." Fools there are; yet anyone
+who has spent time in studying wildflowers, with no better aid than that
+of the popular books on the subject, will hesitate to pass judgment on
+such folly; for as so good an observer as Richard Jefferies said: "If
+you really wish to identify with certainty, and have no botanist friend
+and no _magnum opus_ of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult indeed
+to be quite sure."[5] We have to be thankful for small mercies in this
+matter; and it may be recognized that in some cases--generally where the
+similarity is _not_ great, as that between the strawberry-leaved
+cinquefoil and the wild strawberry, or between the feverfew and the
+scentless mayweed--the books occasionally give a word of advice to "the
+young botanist." Nine times out of ten, however, that young fellow, or
+perchance old fellow (for one may be young as a botanist, while by no
+means young in years), must shift for himself; and doing so, he will
+gradually learn by experience what a number of likenesses there are
+among plants, and how many mistakes may be made before a sure
+acquaintance is arrived at.
+
+[Footnote 5: Essay on "Wild Flowers," in _The Open Air_.]
+
+The name of "mockers" is sometimes given by gardeners to weeds that are
+so like certain valued plants as to be easily mistaken for them; and in
+the same way, in the search for wildflowers, one's attention is often
+distracted, as, for instance, if one is looking for the spineless
+meadow-thistle, the eye may be baffled by innumerable knapweed blossoms
+of the same hue; the clustered bell-flower will feign to be the autumnal
+gentian, its neighbour on the chalk downs; or the blossoms and leaves of
+the purple saxifrage on the high mountains are aped by the ubiquitous
+wild thyme.
+
+Of all these likenesses the most perilous is that between the malodorous
+ramsons, which have a very abiding smell of garlic, and the highly
+esteemed lily of the valley. Hence a story which I once heard from the
+affable keeper who presides over a wooded hill in Westmorland where the
+lily of the valley abounds, and where visitors are permitted to pick as
+many flowers as they like after payment of a shilling. Seeing a
+gentleman busily engaged in gathering a large bunch of ramsons, the
+keeper, suspecting error, asked him what he supposed himself to be
+picking. "Why, lilies of the valley, of course," was the reply. When the
+truth was explained, the visitor thanked the keeper cordially, and
+added: "I was picking the flowers for my wife: but if I had brought her
+a present of garlic she would have had something to say to me. I myself
+have lost the sense of smell."[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: So, too, had the poet Wordsworth; of whom William Morris,
+who disliked the Wordsworthian cult, used to say, in explanation of such
+antipathy: "The fellow couldn't smell."]
+
+Likeness or unlikeness--it is all a matter of observation. To a
+stranger, every sheep in the flock has a face like that of her fellows:
+to the shepherd there are no two sheep alike.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+BOTANESQUE
+
+    What is it? a learned man
+      Could give it a clumsy name.
+    Let him name it who can,
+      The beauty would be the same.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+AMONG the difficulties that waylay the beginner must be reckoned the
+botanical phraseology. We have heard of "the language of flowers," and
+of its romantic associations; but the language of botany is another
+matter, and though less picturesque is equally cryptic and not to be
+mastered without study.
+
+When, for example, we read of a certain umbelliferous plant that its
+"cremocarp consists of two semicircular-ovoid mericarps, constricted at
+the commissure"--or when, with our lives in our hands, so to speak, we
+experiment in fungus-eating, and learn that a particular mushroom has
+its stem "fistulose, subsquamulose, its pileus membranaceous, rarely
+subcarnose, when young ovato-conic, then campanulate, at length torn and
+revolute, deliquescent, and clothed with the flocculose fragments of
+the veil"--we probably feel that some further information would be
+welcome.
+
+A friend who had been reading a series of articles on botany once
+remarked to me that "they could scarcely be said to be written in any
+known language, but were in a new tongue which might perhaps be called
+Botanesque."
+
+But it is of the botanesque nomenclature that I now wish to speak. The
+faculty of bestowing appropriate names is at all times a gift, an
+inspiration, most happy when least laboured, and often eluding the
+efforts of learned and scientific men. By schoolboys it is sometimes
+exhibited in perfection; as in a case that I remember at a public
+school, where three brothers of the name of Berry were severally known,
+for personal reasons, as Bilberry, Blackberry, and Gooseberry, the
+fitness of which botanical titles was never for a moment impugned.
+
+But botanists rarely invent names so well. The nomenclature of plants,
+like that of those celestial flowers, the stars, is a queer jumble of
+ancient and modern, classical learning and mediaeval folk-lore, in which
+the really characteristic features are often overlooked. In this respect
+the Latin names are worse offenders than the English; and one is
+sometimes tempted, in disgust at their pedantic irrelevance, to ignore
+them altogether, and to exclaim with the poet:
+
+    What's in a name? That which we call a rose
+    By any other name would smell as sweet.
+
+But this would be an error; for a name does greatly enhance the interest
+of an object, be it boy, or bird, or flower; and the Greek and Latin
+plant-names, cumbrous and far-fetched though many of them are--as when
+the saintfoin is absurdly labelled _onobrychis_, on the supposition that
+its scent provokes an ass to bray--form, nevertheless, a useful link
+between botanists of different nations and a safeguard against the
+confusion that arises from a variety of local terms.
+
+Among the English names also there are some clumsy appellations, and in
+a few cases the Latin ones are much pleasanter: _stellaria_, for
+example, as I have already said, is more elegant than "stitchwort."
+"What have I done?" asks the small cousin of the woodruff, in Edward
+Carpenter's poem, when it justly protests against its hideous
+christening by man:
+
+    What have I done? Man came,
+      Evolutional upstart one,
+    With the gift of giving a name
+      To everything under the sun.
+    What have I done? Man came
+      (They say nothing sticks like dirt),
+    Looked at me with eyes of blame,
+      And called me "Squinancy-wort."
+
+But on the whole the English names of flowers are simpler and more
+suggestive than the Latin; certainly "monk's-hood" is preferable to
+_aconitum_, "rest-harrow" to _ononis_, "flowering rush" to _butomus_;
+and so on, through a long list: and it therefore seems rather strange
+that the native titles should sometimes be ousted by the foreign. I have
+met botanists who had quite forgotten the English, and were obliged to
+ask me for the scientific term before they could sufficiently recall the
+plant of which we were speaking.
+
+The prefix "common" is often very misleading in the English
+nomenclature. Anyone, for example, who should go confidently searching
+for the "common hare's-ear" would soon find that he had got his work cut
+out. There are, in fact, not many plants that are everywhere common;
+most of those that are so described should properly be classed as
+_local_, because, while plentiful in some districts, they are infrequent
+in others.
+
+Botanical names fall mainly into three classes, the medicinal, the
+commemorative, the descriptive. The old uses of plants by the herbalists
+mark the prosaic origin of many of the names; some of which, such as
+"goutweed," at once explain themselves, as indicating supposed remedies
+for ills that flesh is heir to. Others, if less obvious, are still not
+far to seek; the "scabious," for example, derived from the Latin
+_scabies_, was reputed to be a cure for leprosy: a few, like
+"eye-bright" (_euphrasia_, gladness), have a more cheerful significance.
+When we turn to such titles as _centaurea_, for the knapweed and
+cornflower, some explanation is needed, to wit, that Chiron, the
+fabulous centaur, was said to have employed these herbs in the exercise
+of his healing art.
+
+The commemorative names are mostly given in honour of accomplished
+botanists, it being a habit of mankind, presumably prompted by the
+acquisitive instincts of the race, to name any object, great or
+small--from a mountain to a mouse--as _belonging_ to the person who
+discovered or brought it to notice. In the case of wildflowers this is
+not always a very felicitous system of distinguishing them, though
+perhaps better than the utilitarian jargon of the pharmacopoeia.
+Sometimes, indeed, it is beyond cavil; as in the fit association of the
+little _linnaea borealis_ with the great botanist who loved it; but when
+a number of the less important professors of the science are
+immortalized in this way, there seems to be something rather irrelevant,
+if not absurd, in such nomenclature. Why, for example, should two of the
+more charming crucifers be named respectively _Hutchinsia_ and
+_Teesdalia_, after a Miss Hutchins and a Mr. Teesdale? Why should the
+water-primrose be called _Hottonia_, after a Professor Hotton; or the
+sea-heath _Frankenia_, after a Swedish botanist named Franken; and so
+on, in a score of other cases that might be cited? The climax is reached
+when the _rubi_ and the _salices_ are divided into a host of more or
+less dubious sub-species, so that a Bloxam may have his bramble, and a
+Hoffmann his willow, as a possession for all time!
+
+The most rational, and also the most graceful manner of naming flowers
+is the descriptive; and here, luckily, there are a number of titles,
+English or Latin, with which no fault can be found. Spearwort,
+mouse-tail, arrow-head, bird's-foot, colt's-foot, blue-bell, bindweed,
+crane's-bill, snapdragon, shepherd's purse, skull-cap, monk's-hood,
+ox-tongue--these are but a few of the well-bestowed names which, by an
+immediate appeal to the eye, fix the flower in the mind; they are at
+once simple and appropriate: in others, such as Adonis, Columbine,
+penny-cress, cranberry, lady's-mantle, and thorow-wax, the description,
+if less manifest at first sight, is none the less charming when
+recognized. The Latin, too, is at times so befitting as to be accepted
+without demur; thus _iris_, to express the rainbow tints of the flowers,
+needs no English equivalent, and _campanula_ has only to be literally
+rendered as "bell-flower." In _campanula hederacea_, the "ivy-leaved
+bell-flower," we see nomenclature at its best, the petals and the
+foliage of a floral gem being both faithfully described.
+
+A glance at a list of British wildflowers will bring to mind various
+other ways in which names have been given to them--some familiar, some
+romantic, a few even poetical. Among the homely but not unpleasing kind,
+are "Jack by the hedge" for the garlic mustard; "John go to bed at noon"
+for the goat's-beard; "creeping Jenny" for the money-wort; and
+"lady's-fingers" for the kidney-vetch. Of the romantically named plants
+the most conspicuous example is doubtless the forget-me-not, its English
+name contrasting, as it does, with the more realistic Latin _myosotis_,
+which detects in the shape of the leaves a likeness to a mouse's ear.
+None, perhaps, can claim to be so poetical as Gerarde's name for the
+clematis; for "traveller's joy" was one of those happy inspirations
+which are unfortunately rare.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE OPEN DOWNLAND
+
+    Open hither, open hence,
+    Scarce a bramble weaves a fence.
+
+    MEREDITH.
+
+
+WHEN speaking of some Sussex water-meadows, I mentioned as one of their
+many delights the views which they offer of the never distant Downs. The
+charm of these chalk hills is to me only inferior to that of real
+mountains; there are times, indeed, when with clouds resting on the
+summits, or drifting slowly along the coombes, one could almost imagine
+himself to be in the true mountain presence. I have watched, on an
+autumn day, a long sea of vapour rolling up from the weald against the
+steep northern front of the Downs, while their southern slopes were
+still basking in sunshine; and scarcely less wonderful than the clouds
+themselves are the cloud-shadows that may often be seen chasing each
+other across the wide open tracts which lie in the recesses of the
+hills.
+
+"Majestic mountains," "exalted promontories," were among the
+descriptions given of the Downs by Gilbert White: what we now prize in
+them is not altitude but spaciousness. In Rosamund Marriott Watson's
+words:
+
+    Broad and bare to the skies
+    The great Down-country lies.
+
+Its openness, with the symmetry of the free curves and contours into
+which the chalk shapes itself, is the salient feature of the range; and
+to this may be added its liberal gift of solitude and seclusion. Even
+from the babel of Brighton an hour's journey on foot can bring one into
+regions where a perpetual Armistice Day is being celebrated, with
+something better than the two minutes of silence snatched from the
+townsfolk's day of din.
+
+The Downs are also open in the sense of being free, to a very great
+extent, from the enclosures which in so many districts exclude the
+public from the land. In some parts, unfortunately, the abominable
+practice of erecting wire fences is on the increase among sheep-farmers;
+but generally speaking, a naturalist may here wander where he will.
+
+Of all the flowering plants of the Downs, the gorse is at once the
+earliest and the most impressive; no spectacle that English wildflowers
+can offer, when seen _en masse_, excels that of the numberless
+furze-bushes on a bright April day. There is then a vividness in the
+gorse, a depth and warmth of that "deep gold colour" beloved by
+Rossetti, which far surpasses the glazed metallic sheen of a field of
+buttercups. It is pure gold, in bullion, the palpable wealth of
+Croesus, displayed not in flat surfaces, but in bars, ingots, and
+spires, bough behind bough, distance on distance, with infinite variety
+of light and shade, and set in strong relief against a background of
+sombre foliage. Thus it has the appearance, in full sunshine, almost of
+a furnace, a reddish underglow and heart of flame which is lacking even
+in the broom. To creep within one of these gorse-temples when illumined
+by the sun, is to enjoy an ecstasy both of colour and of scent.
+
+With the exception of the furze, the Downland flowers are mostly low of
+stature, as befits their exposed situation, a small but free people
+inhabiting the wind-swept slopes and coombes, and well requiting the
+friendship of those who visit them in their fastnesses. One of the
+earliest and most welcome is the spring whitlow-grass, which abounds on
+ant-hills high up on the ridges, forming a dense growth like soft down
+on the earth's cheek. Here it hastes to get its blossoming done before
+the rush of other plants, its little reddish stalk rising from a rosette
+of short leaves, and bearing the tiny terminal flowers with white deeply
+cleft petals and anthers of yellow hue. Its near successor is the
+equally diminutive mouse-ear (_cerastium semidecandrum_), a
+white-petaled plant of a deep dark green, viscous, and thickly covered
+with hairs.
+
+When summer has come, the flowers of the Downs are legion--yellow
+bird's-foot trefoil, and horse-shoe vetch; milkwort pink, white, or
+blue; fragile rock-rose; graceful dropwort; salad burnet;
+squinancy-wort, and a hundred more,[7] of which one of the fairest,
+though commonest, is the trailing silverweed, whose golden petals are in
+perfect contrast with the frosted silver of the foliage. But the special
+ornament of these hills, known as "the pride of Sussex," is the
+round-headed rampion, a small, erect, blue-bonneted flower which is no
+"roundhead" in the Puritan sense, but rather of the gay company of
+cavaliers. Abundant along the Downs from Eastbourne to Brighton, and
+still further to the west, it is a plant of which the eye never tires.
+
+[Footnote 7: See the beautiful chapter on "The Living Garment," in Mr.
+W. H. Hudson's _Nature in Downland_.]
+
+But it is the orchids that chiefly draw one's thoughts to Downland when
+midsummer is approaching. "Have you seen the bee orchis?" is then the
+question that is asked; and to wander on the lower slopes at that season
+without seeing the bee orchis would argue a tendency to
+absent-mindedness. I used to debate with myself whether the likeness to
+a bee is real or fanciful, till one day, not thinking of orchids at all,
+I stopped to examine a rather strange-looking bee which I noticed on the
+grass, and found that the insect was--a flower. That, so far, settled
+the point; but I still think that the fly orchis is the better imitation
+of the two.
+
+The early spider orchis is native on the eastern range of the Downs,
+near the lonely hamlet of Telscombe and in a few other localities in
+the heart of the hills; where, unless one has luck--and I had none--the
+search for a small flower on those far-stretching slopes is like the
+proverbial hunt for a needle in a hayloft. The only noticeable object on
+the hillside was an apparently dead sheep, about a hundred feet below
+me, lying flat on her back, with hoofs pointing rigidly to the sky; but
+as it was _orchis_, not _ovis_, that I was in quest of, I was about to
+pass on, when I saw a shepherd, who had just come round a shoulder of
+the Down, uplift the sheep and set her on her legs, whereupon, to my
+surprise, she ambled away as if nothing had been amiss with her. I
+learnt from the shepherd that such accidents are not uncommon, and that
+having once "turned turtle" the sluggish creature (as mankind has made
+her) would certainly have perished unless he had chanced to come to the
+rescue. When I told the good man what had brought me to that
+unfrequented coombe, he said, as country people often do, that he did
+not "take much notice" of wildflowers; nevertheless, after inquiring
+about the appearance of the orchids, he volunteered to note the place
+for me if he chanced to see them. Then, as we were parting, he called
+after me: "And if you see any more sheep on their backs, I'll thank you
+if you'll turn 'em over." This I willingly promised, on the principle
+not only of humanity, but that one good turn deserves another. Next
+season, perhaps, our friendly compact may be renewed.
+
+The dingle in which Telscombe lies is rich in flowers; in the Maytime of
+which I am speaking, there was a profusion of hound's-tongue in bloom,
+and a good sprinkling of that charming upland plant, deserving of a
+pleasanter name, the field fleawort; but of what I was searching for, no
+trace. I had walked into the spider's "parlour," but the spider was not
+at home. More fortunate was a lady who on that same day brought to the
+Hove exhibition a flower which she had casually picked on another part
+of the Downs where she was taking a walk. Sitting down for a rest, she
+saw an unknown plant on the turf. It was a spider orchis.
+
+Much less unaccommodating, to me, was the musk orchis, a still smaller
+species which grows in several places where the northern face of the
+Downs is intersected, as below Ditchling Beacon, by deep-cut
+tracks--they can hardly be called bridle-paths--that slant upward across
+the slope. I was told by Miss Robinson, of Saddlescombe, to whose wide
+knowledge of Sussex plants many flower-lovers besides myself have been
+indebted, that she once picked a musk orchis from horseback as she was
+riding along the hill side. It is a sober-garbed little flower, with not
+much except its rarity to signalize it; but an orchis is an orchis
+still; there is no member of the family that has not an interest of its
+own. Many of them are locally common on these hills; to wit, the early
+purple, the fly, the frog, the fragrant, the spotted, the pyramidal,
+and most lovely of all, the dwarf orchis; also the twayblade, the
+lady's-tresses, and one or two of the helleborines. The green-man
+orchis, not uncommon in parts of Surrey and Kent, will here be sought in
+vain.
+
+But the Downs are not wholly composed of grassy sheep-walks and
+furze-dotted wastes; they include many tracts of cultivated land, where,
+if we may judge from the botanical records of the past generation,
+certain cornfield weeds which are now very rare, such as the mouse-tail
+and the hare's-ear, were once much more frequent. It is rather strange
+that the improved culture, which has nearly eliminated several
+interesting species, should have had so little effect on the charlock
+and the poppy, which still colour great squares and sections of the
+Downs with their rival tints, their yellow and scarlet rendered more
+conspicuous by having the quiet tones of these rolling uplands for a
+background.
+
+In autumn, when most of the wealden flowers are withering, the chalk
+hills are still decked with gentians and other late-growing kinds; and
+the persistence, even into sere October, of such children of the sun as
+the rampion and the rock-rose is very remarkable. The autumnal aspect of
+the Downs is indeed as beautiful as any; for there are then many days
+when a blissful calm seems to brood over the great coombes and hollows,
+and the fields lie stretched out like a many-coloured map, the rich
+browns of the ploughlands splashed and variegated with patches of
+yellow and green. Then, too, one sees and hears overhead the joy-flight
+of the rooks and daws, as round and round they circle, higher and
+higher, like an inverted maelstrom swirling upward, till it breaks with
+a chorus of exulting cries as gladdening to the ear as is the sight of
+those aerial manoeuvres to the eye.
+
+The final impression which the Downs leave on the mind is, I repeat, one
+of freedom and space; and this is felt by the flower-lover as strongly
+as by any wanderer on these hills, these "blossoming places in the
+wilderness," as Mr. Hudson has called them, "which make the thought of
+our trim, pretty, artificial gardens a weariness."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+PRISONERS OF THE PARTERRE
+
+    Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden,
+      Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please.
+    I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones:
+      O my wild ones! they tell me more than these.
+
+    MEREDITH.
+
+
+THE domestication of plants, as of animals, is a concern of such
+practical importance that in most minds it quite transcends whatever
+interest may be felt in the beauty of wildflowers. But the many delights
+of the garden ought not to blind us to the fact that there is in the
+wild a peculiar quality which the domesticated can never reproduce, and
+that the plant which is free, even if it be the humblest and most
+common, has a charm for the nature-lover which the more gorgeous
+captives of the garden must inevitably lack. If much is gained by
+domestication, much is also lost. This, doubtless, is felt less strongly
+in the taming of plants than of animals, but in either case it holds
+true.
+
+To some of us, it must be owned, zoological gardens are a nightmare of
+confusion, and the now almost equally popular "rock-garden" a place
+which leaves an impression of dulness and futility; for while we fully
+recognize the interest, such as it is, of inducing Alpines to grow under
+altered conditions of climate, there is an irrelevance in the assembling
+of heterogeneous flowers in one enclosure, which perplexes and wearies
+the mind. For just as a cosmopolitan city is no city at all, and a Babel
+is no language, so a multifarious rock-garden, where a host of alien
+plants are grouped in unnatural juxtaposition, is a collection not of
+flowers but of "specimens." For scientific purposes--the determination
+of species, and viewing the plants in all stages of their growth--it may
+be most valuable: to the mere flower-lover, as he gazes on such a
+concourse, the thought that arises is: "What's Hecuba to him, or he to
+Hecuba?" It is a museum, a herbarium, if you like; but hardly, in any
+true sense, a garden.
+
+I once had the experience of living next door to a friend who was
+smitten with the mania for rock-gardening, and from my study window I
+overlooked the process from start to finish--first the arrival of many
+tons of limestone blocks and chips; then the construction of artificial
+crags and gullies, moraines and escarpments, until a line of miniature
+Alps rose to view; and lastly the planting of various mountain flowers
+in the situations suited to their needs. Then followed many earnest
+colloquies between the creator of this fair scene and a neighbour
+enthusiast, as they walked about the garden together and inspected it
+plant by plant, much as a farmer goes his rounds to examine his oats or
+turnips. They surveyed the world, botanically speaking, from China to
+Peru. Yet somehow I felt that, just as I would rather see a sparrow at
+large than an eagle in captivity, so to be shown round that
+well-fashioned rockery was less entertaining than to show oneself round
+the most barren of the adjacent moors. "Herbes that growe in the
+fieldes," wrote a fifteenth-century herbalist, "be bettere than those
+that growe in gardenes."[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: Quoted in _A Garden of Herbs_, by E. S. Rohde.]
+
+This, however, is by no means the common opinion; on the contrary, there
+is in most minds a disregard or veritable contempt for wildflowers as
+being, with a few exceptions, "weeds," and quite unworthy of comparison
+with the inmates of a garden.
+
+In her _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, Anne Pratt has recorded how she was
+invited by a cottager to throw away a bunch of "ordinary gays" that she
+was carrying, and to gather some garden flowers in their stead.
+
+I once took a long walk over the moors in Derbyshire in order to visit
+certain rare flowers of the limestone dales, among them the
+speedwell-leaved whitlow-grass (_draba muralis_), a specimen of which I
+brought home. This little crucifer is very insignificant in appearance;
+and the fact that anyone should plod many miles to gather it so upset
+the gravity of an extremely demure and respectful servant girl, when
+she saw it on my mantelpiece, that to her own visible shame and
+confusion she broke into a loud giggle, somewhat as Bernard Shaw's
+chocolate-cream soldier failed to conceal his amusement when the
+portrait of the hero of the cavalry charge was shown to him by its
+possessor.
+
+Even in the case of those wildings whose beauty or scent has made them
+generally popular, it is thought the highest compliment to domesticate
+them, to bring them--poor waifs and strays that they are--from their
+forlorn savage state into the fold of civilization, just as a
+"deserving" pauper might be received into an almshouse, or an orphan
+child into one of Dr. Barnardo's homes. And strange to say, this
+reverential belief in the garden, as enhancing the merits of the wild,
+has found its way into many of the wildflower books: for instance, in
+Johns's well-known work, _Flowers of the Field_ (of the _field_, be it
+noted), we are informed that the lily of the valley is "a universally
+admired garden plant, and that the sweet-brier is "deservedly"
+cultivated.
+
+The more refined wildflowers, it will be seen, can thus rise, as it
+were, from the ranks, at the cost of their freedom, which happens to be
+the most interesting thing about them, to be enrolled in the army of the
+civilized; and the result has been that some of the more distinguished
+plants, such as the _daphne mezereum_, are fast losing their place among
+British wildflowers, and becoming nothing better than prisoners and
+captives of the parterre. This disdain that is felt for whatever is
+wild, natural, and unowned, is largely responsible for the unscrupulous
+digging up of any attractive plants that may be discovered, a subject of
+which I propose to speak in the next chapter.
+
+The absurdity of the typical gardener's attitude toward wildflowers is
+well illustrated by some remarks in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ (1856)
+with reference to that exceedingly beautiful plant, the tutsan. "Tutsan
+is a hardy shrubby St. John's-wort, largely employed by gardeners of the
+last century; but it has now, for the most part, retired from business,
+in consequence of the arrival of more attractive and equally serviceable
+newcomers. One or two tutsan bushes may be permitted to help to form a
+screen of shrubs, in consideration of the days of auld lang syne."
+
+Fortunately the tutsan is not "retiring from business" in Nature's
+garden. It seems to me that, instead of carrying more and more
+wildflowers into captivity, it would be much wiser to set at liberty the
+many British plants that are now under detention. I would instruct my
+gardener (if I had one) to lift very carefully the daphnes, the lilies
+of the valley, the tutsans, the cornflowers, the woodruffs, and the rest
+of the native clan, and to plant them out, each according to its taste,
+by bank or hedgerow, in field, common, or wood.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+PICKING AND STEALING
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+      I pluck you out of the crannies.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+THERE is, as I have said, a positive contempt in many minds for the
+wildflower; that is, for the flower which is regarded as being no one's
+"property." But the flora of a country, rightly considered, is very far
+from being unowned; it is the property of the people, and when any
+species is diminished or extirpated the loss is not private but
+national. We have already reached a time, as many botanists think, when
+the choicer British flowers need some sort of protection.
+
+That some injury should be caused to our native flora by improved
+culture, drainage, building, and the extension of towns, is inevitable;
+though these losses might be considerably lessened if there were a more
+general regard for natural beauty. But that is all the stronger reason
+for discountenancing such damage as is done in mere thoughtlessness, or,
+worse, for selfish purposes; and it were greatly to be wished that some
+of the good folk who pray that their hands may be kept "from picking and
+stealing" would so far widen the scope of their sympathies as to include
+the rarer wildflowers.
+
+It cannot be doubted that there is an immense amount of wasteful
+flower-picking by children, and also by persons who are old enough to
+know better. Nothing is commoner, in Spring, than to see piles of
+freshly gathered hyacinths or cowslips abandoned by the roadside; and
+many other flowers share the same fate, including, as I have noticed,
+the beautiful green-winged meadow orchis. Trippers and holiday-makers
+are often very mischievous: I have seen them, for instance, on the
+ramparts of Conway Castle, hooking and tearing the red valerian which is
+an ornament to the grey old walls. I was told by a friend who lives in a
+district where the rare meadow-sage (_salvia pratensis_) is native, that
+he is compelled to pluck the blue flowers just before the August
+bank-holiday, in order to save the plant itself from being up-rooted and
+carried off.
+
+Primroses, abundant as they still are in many places, have nearly
+disappeared from others, in consequence of the depredations of
+flower-vendors; and there was a time when they were seriously threatened
+in the neighbourhood of London because a certain fashionable cult was at
+its height. Witness the following "Idyll of Primrose Day" by some
+unknown versifier:
+
+    How blest was dull old Peter Bell,
+      Whom Wordsworth sung in days of yore!
+    A primrose by a river's brim
+    A yellow primrose was to him,
+      And it was nothing more.
+
+    Alas! 'tis something more to us;
+      No longer Nature's meekest flower,
+    But symbol of consummate Quack,
+    Who by tall talk and knavish knack
+      Could plant himself in power.
+
+    For his sweet sake we mourn, each spring,
+      Our lanes and hedgerows robbed and bare,
+    Our woods despoiled by clumsy clown,
+    That primrose-tufts may come to town
+      For tuft-hunters to wear.
+
+    And so, on snobbish Primrose Day,
+      We envy Peter's simple lore:
+    A primrose, worn with fulsome fuss,
+    A yellow primrose is to us,
+      Alas! and something more.
+
+The nurseryman and the professional gardener have also much to answer
+for in the destruction of wildflowers. Take the following instance,
+quoted from the _Flora of Kent_, with reference to the cyclamen:
+"Towards the end of August, 1861, I was shown the native station of this
+plant. . . . The people in those parts had found out it was in request,
+and had almost entirely extirpated it, digging up the roots, and selling
+them for transplantation into shrubberies." In the same work it is
+recorded that, when the frog orchis was found in some abundance near
+Canterbury, "in a wonderfully short space of time the whole of this
+charming colony was dug and extirpated."
+
+Again, if it be permissible to call a spade a spade, what shall be said
+of those roving knights of the trowel, the unconscionable rock-gardeners
+who ride abroad in search of some new specimen for their collections? A
+late writer of very charming books on the subject has feelingly
+described how, after the discovery of some long-sought treasure, he
+craved a brief spell of repose, a sort of holy calm, before commencing
+operations. "We blessed ones," he said, referring to botanists as
+contrasted with ornithologists, "may sit down calmly, philosophically,
+beside our success, and gently savour all its sweetness, until it is
+time to take out the trowel after half an hour of restful rapture in our
+laurels."[9]
+
+[Footnote 9: From _My Rock Garden_, by Reginald Farrer, p. 257.]
+
+Other flower-fanciers there are who show much less circumspection. In
+Upper Teesdale, where the rare blue gentian (_gentiana verna_) is found
+on the upland pastures, I was told that a "gentleman" had come with two
+gardeners in a motor, and departed laden with a number of these
+beautiful Alpine flowers for transplantation to his private rockery. The
+nation which permits such a theft--far worse than stealing from a
+private garden--deserves to possess no wildflowers at all; and such a
+botanist, if botanist he can be called, deserves to be himself
+transplanted, or transported--to Botany Bay.
+
+The same vandalism, in varying degrees, has been at work in every part
+of the land, and nothing has yet been done effectively to check it,
+whether by legislation, education, or appeal to public opinion: it seems
+to be absolutely no one's business to protect what ought to be a
+cherished national possession. In no district, perhaps, has the greed of
+the collector been more unabashed than among the mountains of Cumberland
+and North Wales. "Thanks to the inconsiderate rapacity of the
+fern-getter," wrote Canon Rawnsley, in an Introduction to a _Guide to
+Lakeland_, "the few rarer sorts are fast disappearing. ... There has
+been, in the time past, quite a cruel and unnecessary uprooting of the
+rarer ferns and flowers;" and he went on to ask: "When will travellers
+learn that the fern by the wayside has a public duty to fulfil?"
+
+All such remonstrances have hitherto been in vain: neither the fear of
+God nor the fear of man has deterred the collector from his purpose. It
+is pleasant to read that in the seventeenth century a Welsh guide
+alleged "the fear of eagles" as a reason for not leading one of the
+earliest English visitors to the haunts of Alpine plants on the
+precipices of Carnedd Llewelyn; but unfortunately eagles are now as
+scarce as nurserymen and fern-filchers are numerous.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ROUND A SURREY CHALK-PIT
+
+     I found a deep hollow on the side of a great hill, a green concave,
+     where I could rest and think in perfect quiet.
+
+    RICHARD JEFFERIES.
+
+
+AS a range of hills, the North Downs are inferior to those of Sussex in
+beauty and general interest. Their outline suggests no "greyhound backs"
+coursing along the horizon; nor have they that "living garment" of turf,
+woven by centuries of pasturing, which Hudson has matchlessly described.
+Their northern side is but a gradual slope leading up to a bleak
+tableland; and only when one emerges suddenly on their southern front,
+with its wide views across the weald, do their glories begin to be
+realized. In this steep declivity, facing the sun at noon, there is a
+distinctive and unfailing charm, quite unlike that of the corresponding
+escarpment of the South Downs: it forms, as it were, an inland riviera,
+a sheltered undercliff, green with long waving grasses, and sweet with
+marjoram and thyme, a haven where the wandering flower-lover may revel
+in glowing sunshine, or take a siesta, if so minded, under that most
+friendly of trees the white-beam.
+
+I have memories of many a pious Sabbath spent in this enchanted realm,
+with the wind in the beeches for anthem, and for incense the scent of
+marjoram enriching the air. To one who knows these fragrant banks it
+seems strange that though the wild thyme has been so celebrated by poets
+and nature-writers, the marjoram, itself a glorified thyme, has by
+comparison gone unsung. We are told in the books that it is a potherb,
+an aromatic stimulant, even a remedy for toothache. It may be all that;
+but it is something much better, a thing of beauty which might cure the
+achings not of the tooth only, but of the heart. Its relatives the
+lavender and the rosemary have not more charm. It was the _amaracus_ of
+Virgil, the flower on whose sweetness the young Iulus rested, when he
+was spirited away by Venus to her secret abode:
+
+    She o'er the prince entrancing slumber strows,
+    And, fondling in her bosom, far away
+    Bears him aloft to high Idalian bowers,
+    Where banks of marjoram sweet, in soft repose,
+    Enfold him, propped on beds of fragrant flowers.[10]
+
+[Footnote 10: _AEneid_, I. 691-4.]
+
+Who could wish for a diviner couch?
+
+Along this range of hills the chalk-pits, used or disused, are frequent
+at intervals, some of such size as to form landmarks visible at the
+distance of twenty or thirty miles. For a botanist, these
+amphitheatres, large or small, have always an attraction; for though
+they vary much in the quality of their flowers, and some have little to
+show beyond the commoner plants of a calcareous soil, there are a few
+which present a surprising array of the choicer kinds; and to light upon
+one of these treasure-troves is a joy indeed. I have in mind a large
+semicircular disused pit, lying high among the Downs, and bordered with
+abrupt grassy banks and coppices of beech, hazel, and fir, where during
+the past thirty years I have spent many long summer days, sometimes
+writing under the shade of the trees, at other times idling among the
+flowers, or watching the snakes that lie basking in the sun, or the
+kestrels that may often be seen hovering over the adjacent slopes. For
+all their unrivalled openness and sense of space, the Sussex Downs have
+no such "sun-trap" to show.
+
+One has heard of "the music of wild flowers."[11] I used to call the
+floor of this chalk-pit "the orchistra," so numerous are the orchids
+that adorn it. The spotted orchis, the fragrant orchis, the pyramidal
+orchis, the bee orchis, the butterfly orchis, and the twayblade--these
+six are stationed there within a small compass. The marsh orchis grows
+below; the fly orchis is in the neighbouring thickets; in the
+beech-woods are the bird's-nest orchis, the broad-leaved helleborine,
+with its rare purple variety (_epipactis purpurata_), and the large
+white helleborine or egg orchis. A dozen of the family within the
+circuit of a short walk! The man orchis seems to be absent, though it
+grows in some plenty in similar places on the same line of hills.
+
+[Footnote 11: See note on p. 12.]
+
+Another feature of the chalk-pit is the viper's bugloss. If, as Thoreau
+says, there is a flower for every mood of the mind, the viper's bugloss
+must surely belong to that mood which is associated with the pomps and
+splendours of the high summer noontide. Gorgeous and tropical in its
+colouring beyond all other British flowers, as it rears its bristly
+green spikes, studded profusely with the pink buds that are turning to
+an equally vivid blue, it seems instinct with the spirit of a fiery
+summer day. Like other members of the Borage group, it has the warm
+southern temperament; its name, too, suits it well; for there is
+something viperish in the almost fierce beauty of the plant, as if some
+passionate-hearted exotic had sprung up among the more staid and sober
+representatives of our native flora. Its richness never palls on us; we
+no more tire of its brilliance than of the summer itself.
+
+Akin to the bugloss, though less striking and less abundant, is the
+hound's-tongue, with its long downy leaves and numerous purple-red buds
+of a sombre and sullen hue that is not often to be matched. It has the
+misfortune, so we are told, to smell of mice; were it not for this
+hindrance to its career, it might justly be held in high esteem. Among
+the larger plants prominent on ledges of the chalk, or in near
+neighbourhood, are the mullein, the teazle, the ploughman's-spikenard,
+and the deadly nightshade or dwale. The buckthorn is frequent in the
+hedges and thickets; and the traveller's-joy is climbing wherever it can
+get a hold.
+
+But it is on the shelving banks that skirt the margin of the pit that
+the comeliest flowers are to be found; the most beautiful of all,
+perhaps, is the rock-rose, a plant so delicate that its small golden
+petals will scarcely survive a journey in the vasculum, yet so hardy
+that it will flower to the very latest autumn days. The wild strawberry
+is creeping everywhere; and the crimson of the grass vetchling may
+occasionally be seen among the ranker herbage, to which the stalk seems
+to belong; on the shorter turf is the small squinancy-wort, lovely
+cousin of the woodruff, its pink and white petals chiselled like the
+finest ivory.
+
+The elegant yellow-wort, glaucous and perfoliate, and the handsome pink
+centaury, are common on the Downs; so, too, in the late summer, will be
+their less showy but always welcome relative, the autumnal gentian: all
+three have the firm and erect habit that is a property of the Gentian
+tribe. It is one of the many merits of these chalk hills that their
+flower-season is a prolonged one. Not the gentians only, with
+yellow-wort and centaury, are still vigorous in the autumn, but also the
+blue fleabane, clustered bell-flower, vervain, marjoram, basil, and many
+labiate herbs. Even in October, when the glory has long departed from
+the lowlands of the weald, there remains a brave show of blossom on
+these delectable hills.
+
+The Pilgrim's Way, often no more than a grassy track, runs eastward
+along the base of the Downs, interrupted here and there by the
+encroachment of parks and private estates, which now block the ancient
+route to Canterbury; but where Nature has provided so many shrines and
+cathedrals of her own, there is no need of any others; certainly I never
+lacked a holy place wherein to make my vows, many as were the
+pilgrimages on which I started.
+
+On one occasion that I recall, I was joined in my quest by a rather
+strange fellow-traveller, a man who met me, coming from the opposite
+direction, and eagerly asked whether I had seen anyone on the hillside.
+When I assured him that nobody had passed that way, he turned and walked
+in my company, and presently confided to me that he was an attendant at
+a lunatic asylum, and was in pursuit of an inmate who had escaped an
+hour or two before. We went a short distance together, he peering into
+the coombes and bushy hollows, as incongruous a pair as could be
+imagined; yet it occurred to me that his mission, too, might be
+considered a botanical one, since there is a plant named the
+madwort--nay, worse, the "German madwort," a title which, in those
+feverish war-days, would of itself have justified incarceration.
+Nevertheless, as I always sympathize with escaped prisoners (provided,
+of course, that it is not _my_ bed under which they conceal
+themselves), I was secretly glad that my companion's search was
+unavailing.
+
+To return to my chalk-pit: I have mentioned but a few of the many
+flowers that belong there; within a mile, or less, others and quite
+different ones are flourishing. The rampion, though very local in
+Surrey, is found in places along these Downs; so, too, is the strange
+yellow bugle, or "ground pine," which is much more like a diminutive
+pine than a bugle; also the still stranger fir-rape (_monotropa_), which
+lurks in the thickest shade of the beech-woods. That interesting shrub,
+the butcher's-broom, or "knee holly," as it is more agreeably called, is
+another native: it wears its small flower daintily, like a button-hole,
+on the centre of the rigid leaves of deepest green.
+
+A few miles east there is another chalk-pit which, though inferior in
+the number of its flowers, has a sprinkling of the man orchis, whose
+shape, if there is any likeness at all, seems to suggest a toy man
+dangling from a string; a simile which I prefer to that of a dead man
+dangling from the gallows. In the woods that crown this pit there is a
+profusion of the deadly nightshade; and I noticed that during the
+war-summers, when there was a scarcity of belladonna, these plants were
+regularly harvested by some enterprising herbalist.
+
+Such are a few of the delights of the Surrey undercliff; but alas! they
+are vanishing delights, for the proximity to London has rendered all
+this district peculiarly liable to change. How could it be otherwise,
+when from the top of the ridge the dome of "smoky Paul's" is visible on
+a clear day, and a view of the Crystal Palace, "that dreadful C.P." as
+one has heard it called, can seldom be avoided. What havoc has been
+wrought in the Surrey hills by the advance of "civilization," may be
+learnt by anyone who studies the district with a sixty-year-old _Flora
+of Surrey_ for guide. Between Merstham and Godstone, for instance, the
+hillsides, which were then free, open ground, have become in the saddest
+sense "residential," and the wildflowers have suffered in proportion.
+One may still find there the narrow-leaved everlasting pea, "hanging in
+festoons on thickets and copses," but other equally valued plants have
+disappeared or are disappearing. The marsh helleborine was once
+plentiful, it seems, in a swampy situation near Merstham; but when, by
+dint of careful trespassing and circumnavigation of barbed wire, I
+reached a place which corresponded exactly with that indicated in the
+_Flora_, not a single flower was to be seen. Probably some conscientious
+gardener had "transplanted" them.
+
+It is impossible to doubt that this process will be continued, and that
+every year more wild land will be broken up in the building of villas
+and in the making of gardens, with the inevitable shrubberies, gravel
+walks, flower-borders, and lawn-tennis courts. The trim parterre with
+its "detested calceolarias," as a great nature-lover has described
+them, will more and more be substituted for the rough banks that are the
+favourite haunts of marjoram and rock-rose. How can the owners of such a
+fairyland have the heart to sell it for such a purpose? In Omar's words:
+
+    I often wonder what the vintners buy
+    One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+A SANDY COMMON
+
+    The common, overgrown with fern, . . .
+    Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf
+    Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs
+    And fungus fruits of earth, regales the sense
+    With luxury of unexpected sweets.
+
+    COWPER.
+
+
+STRETCHED between the North Downs and the weald, through the west part
+of Kent and the length of Surrey, runs the parallel range of greensand,
+which in a few places, as at Toys Hill and Leith Hill, equals or
+overtops its rival, but is elsewhere content to keep a lower level, as a
+region of high open commons and heaths. The light soil of this district
+shows a flora as different from that of the chalk hills on its north as
+of the wealden clays on its south; so that a botanist has here the
+choice of three kingdoms to explore.
+
+In natural beauty, these hills can hardly compare with the Downs. "For
+my part," wrote Gilbert White, "I think there is something peculiarly
+sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in
+preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and
+shapeless."[12] The same opinion was held by William Morris, who once
+declined to visit a friend of his (from whom I had the story) because he
+was living on just such a sandy common in west Surrey, where the
+formless and lumpish outline of the land was a pain to the artistic eye.
+For hygienic reasons, however, a sandy soil is reputed best to dwell
+upon; and I have heard a tale--told as a warning to those who are
+over-fastidious in their choice of a site--of a pious old gentleman who,
+being determined to settle only where he could be assured of two
+conditions, "a sandy soil and the pure gospel," finally died without
+either in a Bloomsbury hotel.
+
+[Footnote 12: _Natural History of Selborne_, ch. lvi.]
+
+The gorse and broom in spring, and in autumn the heather, are the marked
+features of the sandy Common: the foxglove, too, which has a strong
+distaste for lime, here often thrives in vast abundance, and makes a
+great splash of purple at the edge of the woods. But even apart from
+these more conspicuous plants, the "barren heath," as it is sometimes
+called, is well able to hold its own in a flower-lover's affection;
+though the absence of the finer orchids, and of some other flowers that
+pertain to the chalk, makes it perhaps less exciting as a field of
+adventure. In Crabbe's words:
+
+    And then how fine the herbage! Men may say
+    A heath is barren: nothing is so gay.
+
+From May to September the Common is sprinkled with a bright succession
+of flowers--the slender _moenchia_, akin to the campions and
+chickweeds, dove's-foot, crane's-bill; tormentil; heath bedstraw;
+speedwells of several species; autumnal harebell, and golden rod--each
+in turn playing its part. Among the aristocracy of this small people are
+the bird's-foot, an elfin creature, with tiny pinnate leaves and creamy
+crimson-veined blossoms; the modest milkwort, itself far from a rarity,
+yet so lovely that it shames us in our desire for the rare; and the
+trailing St. John's-wort, which we hail as the beauty of the family,
+until presently, meeting with its "upright" sister of the smooth
+heart-shaped leaves and the golden red-stained buds, we are forced to
+own that to her the name of _hypericum pulcrum_ most rightly belongs.
+
+But the chief prize of the sandy heath is the Deptford pink, a rare
+annual of uncertain appearance, which bears the unmistakable stamp of
+nobility: it is a red-letter day for the flower-lover when he finds a
+small colony of these comely plants on some dry grassy margin. It was on
+a bank in Westerham Park that I first met with them; and there they
+reappeared, though in lessening numbers, in the two succeeding seasons.
+There was also a solitary flower, growing unpicked, strange to say,
+close beside one of the most frequented tracks that skirt the
+neighbouring Common.
+
+In the woods of beech and fir with which the hill is fringed there are
+more fungi than flowers; and here too the "call of the wild" is felt,
+though to a feast of a less ethereal order. Fungus hunting is one of the
+best of sports, and a joy unknown to those who imagine that the orthodox
+"mushroom" of the market is the only wholesome species; and it is worthy
+of note that, whereas the true meadow mushroom is procurable during only
+a few weeks of the year, the fungus-eater can pursue his quarry during
+six or seven months, so great is the variety at his disposal. Among the
+delicacies that these woods produce are the red-fleshed mushroom, a
+brown-topped warty plant which becomes rufous when bruised; the
+gold-coloured chantarelle, often found growing in profusion along bushy
+paths and dingles; the big edible boletus, ignored in this country, but
+well appreciated on the Continent; and best of all, deserving indeed of
+its Latin name, the _agaricus deliciosus_, or orange-milk agaric, so
+called because its flesh, when broken, exudes an orange-coloured juice.
+It is easy to identify these and many other species with the help of a
+handbook, and it therefore seems strange that Englishmen, as compared
+with other races, should be prejudiced against the use of this valuable
+form of food. As for the country-folk who live within easy reach of such
+dainties, yet would rather starve than eat a "toadstool," what can one
+say of them?
+
+    _O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!_[13]
+
+[Footnote 13: Thrice blest, if they but knew what joys are theirs!]
+
+From the south side of these fir-woods one formerly emerged, almost at a
+step, on to the escarpment that overlooks the weald, and at one of the
+finest viewpoints in Kent or Surrey; but the trees were felled during
+the war by Portuguese woodmen imported for that lamentable purpose. The
+spot is remembered by me for another reason; for there, in the years
+before the madness of Europe, used to sit almost daily a very aged man,
+whose home was on the hillside close by, and who was brought out, by his
+own wish, that he might spend his declining days not in moping by a
+kitchen fire, but in gazing across the wide expanse of weald, where all
+the landmarks were familiar to him, and of which he seemed never to
+weary. No more truly devout old age could have been desired; for there
+was no mistaking his genuine love for what Richard Jefferies called "the
+pageant of summer," the open-air panorama of the seasons, as observed
+from that heathery watch-tower. The only cloud on his horizon, so to
+speak, was the flock of aeroplanes which even then were beginning to mar
+the sky's calmness: of these he would sagely remark that "if man had
+been intended to fly, the Almighty would have given him wings." Had the
+old philosopher known to what hellish uses those engines were presently
+to be put, he might have wondered still more at such thwarting of the
+divine intent.
+
+Of sandpits there are several on the Common, and their disused borders
+are favourite haunts for wildflowers. The "least" cudweed, a slender
+wisp of a plant, is native there; the small-flowered crane's-bill, which
+is liable to be confounded with the dove's-foot; also one or two curious
+aliens, such as the Canadian fleabane, and the Norwegian _potentilla_,
+which resembles the common cinquefoil but has smaller flowers.
+
+But what most allured me to the spot was the sheep's scabious, or, as it
+is more prettily named in the Latin, _Jasione montana_, a delightful
+little plant, baffling alike in name, form, and colour. It is called a
+scabious, yet is not one. It is classed as a campanula, and seen through
+a lens is found to be not one but many campanulas, a number of tiny
+bells united in a single head. Then its hue--was there ever tint more
+elusive, more indefinable, than that of its many petals? Is it grey, or
+blue, or lavender, or lilac, or what? We only know that the flower is
+very beautiful as it blooms on sandy bank or roadside wall.
+
+At the side of a small plantation that borders the heath there thrives
+the alien small-flowered balsam, which, like some of its handsomer
+kinsfolk, seems to be quickly extending its range. Near the same spot I
+noticed several years ago, on a winter day, a patch of large soft
+pale-green leaves, which at a hasty glance I took to be those of the
+scented colt's-foot; but when I passed that way in the following spring
+I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow
+composite flowers, had risen from the mass of foliage. It proved to be
+the leopard's-bane, probably an "escape" from some neighbouring garden,
+but already well established and thriving like any native.
+
+But the Common does not consist wholly of dry ground; in one place, near
+the centre of the golf-course, there is a marshy depression, and in it a
+small pond where the water is a foot or two deep in winter, but in a hot
+summer almost disappears. Here a double discovery awaits the inquirer.
+The muddy pool is full of one of the rarer mints--pennyroyal--and with
+it grows the curious _helosciadium inundatum_, or "least marsh-wort," a
+small umbelliferous plant which has more the habit and appearance of a
+water crowfoot, its lower leaves being cut in fine hair-like segments.
+
+Nor do the fields and lanes that adjoin the heath lack their distinctive
+charm. The orpine, or "live-long," a handsome purple stonecrop, is not
+uncommon by the hedgeside; and the lovely _geranium striatum_, or
+striped crane's-bill, an occasional straggler from gardens, has made for
+itself a home; a hardy little adventurer it is, and one hopes it may yet
+win a place among British flowers, as many a less desirable immigrant
+has done. Poppies and corn-marigolds are a wonder of red and gold in the
+cultivated fields, the poppies as usual looking their best (if
+agriculturists will pardon the remark) when they have a crop of wheat
+for a background. The queer little knawel springs up among spurrey and
+parsley-piert; and in one locality is the lesser snapdragon, which
+always commands attention, partly for its uncommonness, and partly as a
+scion of the romantic race of _Antirrhinum_, which has a fascination not
+for children only, but for all lovers of the quaint.
+
+I have mentioned the golf-course. To many a Common the golfers are
+becoming what the builders are to the Downs--invaders who, by the
+trimming of grass and cutting down of bushes, are turning the natural
+into the artificial, and appropriating for the use of the few the
+possession of the many. To everyone his recreation ground; but are not
+the golf clubs getting rather more than their portion?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS
+
+    Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes.
+
+    MILTON.
+
+I SPOKE just now of a love of the quaint. Quaintness, though it may
+exist apart from beauty, is often associated with it, and, unlike
+grotesqueness, has a pleasurable interest for the spectator. In flowers
+it is usually suggested by some abnormality of shape, as in the
+snapdragon; less frequently, as in the fritillary, by a singular effect
+of colouring. Perhaps it is to the orchis group that one would most
+confidently apply the word; for they arrest attention not so much by
+their beauty as by their strangeness: one of them, indeed, the dwarf
+orchis, is undeniably beautiful, while another, the bird's-nest, is as
+ugly as a broom-rape; the others, if one tried to find a comprehensive
+epithet, might fairly be described as quaint.
+
+This quality in the orchids is not due solely to the odd likeness which
+some of them present to certain insects; for, as far as British species
+are concerned, the similarity, with a few exceptions, is somewhat
+fanciful. If it be granted that the fly, the bee, and the spider orchis
+are justly named--though even in these the resemblance is not always
+recognized when pointed out--it is no less true that one looks in vain
+for the semblance of a "butterfly," or of a "frog," in the plants that
+are so entitled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the "man" in
+_aceras anthropophora_, or the "egg" in the white helleborine. But there
+is a charming quaintness in nearly all members of the family, owing
+largely to the peculiar structure of the lower lip of the corolla or the
+unusual length of the spur.
+
+The very name of the snapdragon is a proof of its hold upon the
+imagination: what mediaeval romance and unfailing charm for children--and
+for adults--is conveyed in the word! The plant is at its best when clad
+in royal hue of purple; the white robe also has its glory; but the
+intermediate forms, striped and mottled, that are so fancied in gardens,
+are degenerates from a noble type. Seen on the walls of some ancient
+ruin, the snapdragon is a wonder and a delight; it is to be regretted
+that its place is now so often usurped by the red valerian, in
+comparison a mere upstart and pretender. The lesser snapdragon or
+calf's-snout, with the toadflaxes and fluellens, shares in the
+characteristic quaintness of its tribe.
+
+I will next instance the "perfoliates," plants not confined to any one
+order, but alike in having a stem which passes midway through the leaf
+or pair of leaves, a most engaging curiosity of structure. It is by
+this peculiarity that the yellow-wort, a gentian with glaucous foliage
+and blossoms like "patines of bright gold," mainly wins its popularity.
+But the quaintest of perfoliates is the hare's-ear, or "thorow-wax," as
+it used to be called, of which, as Gerarde wrote, "every branch grows
+thorow every leaf, making them like hollow cups or saucers." The
+thorow-wax owes its attractiveness to these singular glaucous leaves,
+which might be compared with an artist's palette; in some measure, also,
+to the sharp-pointed bracts by which the minute yellow flowers are
+enfolded--features that lend it a distinction which many much more
+beautiful plants do not possess.
+
+From no catalogue of quaint plants could the butterwort be omitted.
+"Mountain-sanicle" was its old name; and all climbers are acquainted
+with it, as it studs the wet rocks on the lower hillsides with pale
+green or yellowish leaves like starfish on a seashore. Its
+flowering-season is short, but full of interest, for lo! from its centre
+there rise in June one or two long and dainty stems, each bearing at its
+extremity a drooping purple flower that might at first glance be taken
+for a violet--a violet springing from a starfish!
+
+It is a long step from these conspicuous examples of the quaint to the
+small and modest moschatel, a hedge-flower which is likely to go
+unobserved unless it be made a special object of inquiry. _Adoxa_, "the
+unknown to fame," is its Greek title; but if it has little claim to
+beauty in the ordinary sense, there is no slight charm in its delicate
+configuration, and in the whimsical arrangement of its five slender
+flower-heads--a terminal one, facing upwards, supported by four lateral
+ones, with a resemblance to the faces of a clock; whence its not
+inappropriate nickname, "the clock-tower." A fairy-like little belfry it
+is, whose chimes must be listened for, if at all, in the early spring,
+for it hastens to get its flowering finished before it is overgrown by
+the rank herbage of the roadside.
+
+There are many other flowers that might claim a place in this chapter,
+such as the sundews and the bladderworts; the mimulus and ground pine;
+the samphire and sea-rocket; the mullein and the teazle; and not least,
+the herb Paris, with that large quadruple "love-knot" into which its
+leaves are fashioned. But it must suffice to speak of one more.
+
+The fritillary, which shall close the list, is quaint to the point of
+being bizarre: its various names bear witness to the freakishness of its
+apparel--"guinea-flower," "turkey-hen," "chequered lily,"
+"snake's-head," and so forth. It was aptly described by Gerarde as
+"chequered most strangely. . . . Surpassing the curiousest painting that
+art can set down"; and in addition to this gorgeous colouring, the
+bell-like shape and heavy poise of its flower-heads contribute to the
+striking effect. From Gerarde to W. H. Hudson, who has portrayed it
+very beautifully in his _Book of a Naturalist_, the fritillary has been
+fortunate in its chroniclers; in its name, which it shares with a
+handsome family of butterflies, it can hardly be said to have been
+fortunate. For apart from the consideration that it is no great honour
+to a fine insect or flower to be likened to that instrument of human
+folly, a dicebox (_fritillus_), there is the practical difficulty of
+pronouncing the word as the dictionaries tell us it must be pronounced,
+with the accent on the first syllable; and not the dictionaries only,
+but the poets, as in Arnold's oft-quoted but very cacophonous line:
+
+    I know what white, what purple fritillaries. . . .
+
+Why must so quaintly charming a flower be so barbarously named that
+one's jaw is well-nigh cracked in articulating it?
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS
+
+    A gaily chequered, heart-expanding view,
+    Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
+    Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
+
+    THOMSON.
+
+
+THAT part of Hertfordshire where the Chiltern Hills, after curving
+proudly round from Tring to Dunstable, and almost rivalling the South
+Downs in shapeliness, die away at their north-east extremity, over
+Hitchin, to a bare expanse of ploughland, has the aspect of a broad
+plain swept by all winds of heaven, but is found, when explored, to be
+by no means devoid of charm. There, by a paradox, the very extent of the
+great hedgeless cornfields, reclaimed from the wild, gives the landscape
+a sort of wildness; it is in fact the district whence the Royston crow
+got its name, that hooded outlaw to whose survival a wide tract of open
+country was indispensable; and there is a pleasure in wandering over it
+which is unguessed by the traveller who rushes through in an express to
+Cambridge, and marvels at the tameness of the land.
+
+The wildflowers of cultivated fields are as distinctive as those of
+heath or hillside. It would be difficult to name any two more beautiful
+"weeds" than the succory and the corn "blue-bottle"--the light blue and
+the dark blue; both have deservedly won their "blues"--and when to these
+is added the corn-cockle (_lychnis githago_), the rich veined purple of
+its petals set off by the long pointed green sepals and leaves, what
+handsomer trio could be wished? Unhappily these flowers have become much
+scarcer than they used to be; but in the Hertfordshire fields they are
+still frequently to be admired.
+
+The intensive culture of which we nowadays hear so much has this
+drawback for the botanist, that it is robbing him of some plants which
+he is very loth to lose. The most striking of these, perhaps, is that
+quaint "perfoliate" of which I have already spoken, the thorow-wax or
+hare's-ear, which in Gerarde's time was so plentiful in the wheatland as
+to be what he calls its "infirmitie": now it is decidedly rare. I have
+never been so fortunate (except in dreams) as to see it _in situ_; but I
+have for several years grown it from the seed of a specimen gathered by
+a friend in the cornfields near Baldock, and have always been impressed
+by its elegance. It is a delicate and fastidious plant, thriving only,
+as I have noticed, when the conditions are quite favourable: this may
+account for its steady diminution in many counties, while coarser and
+hardier weeds are legion.
+
+A more abiding "infirmitie" of some Hertfordshire cornfields is the
+crow-garlic, a wild onion whose pink umbels often surmount the crop in
+hundreds. Wishing to learn their local name, I once asked a farm-hand at
+Letchworth what he called the flowers. After gazing at them sternly, he
+said to me: "They're _not_ flowers. They're a disease." I suggested that
+whatever their demerits might be from the point of view of an
+agriculturist, they must, strictly speaking, be regarded as flowers:
+this he grudgingly conceded; but as if regretting to have made so large
+an admission, he called after me, as I left him: "They're a disease."
+His pertinacity on this point reminded me of the reaffirmations of Old
+Kaspar, in Southey's poem, "After Blenheim":
+
+    "Nay, nay" ... quoth he,
+      "It was a famous victory."
+
+The crow-garlic, as it happens, is rather a pretty plant; and the
+opprobrious name "disease" might be much more suitably assigned to the
+tall broom-rape, an unwholesome-looking parasite which lives rapaciously
+at the expense of the great knapweed, and is occasionally met with in
+the district of which I am speaking.
+
+An extremely local umbellifer, said to have been formerly so abundant
+about Baldock that pigs were turned out to fatten on its roots, is the
+bulbous caraway, which looks like a larger edition of the common
+earth-nut. None of the country-folk whom I questioned seemed to have any
+knowledge of its uses; from which it would appear that its virtues,
+like those of many once famous herbs, have been forgotten in these
+sceptical modern times. It is well, perhaps, that _carum bulbocastanum_
+should be saved from the pigs; for in that unlovely region its white
+umbels serve to lighten up the monotony of the waysides.
+
+An unexpected discovery is always welcome. In a waste field, about a
+mile from Royston, I once found a tall branching plant with an abundance
+of yellow cruciferous flowers, which I should not have recognized but
+for the fact that a year or two previously my friend Edward Carpenter
+had sent me a specimen from Corsica. It was the woad, famous as the
+source of the blue dye with which the ancient Britons stained
+themselves. A mere "casual" in Hertfordshire, it is said to be
+established in a few chalk-quarries near Guildford and elsewhere.
+
+Thus far I have spoken of none but field flowers; but the district does
+not consist wholly of cultivated land, for even in that wilderness of
+tillage there are oases which have never felt the plough, and where the
+flora is of a different order. Therfield Heath, near Royston, is one of
+them, a grassy slope where the handsome purple milk-vetch is plentiful,
+and one may find, though in less abundance, the sprightly field
+fleawort, which seems more familiar as an ornament of the high chalk
+Downs.
+
+Nor are water springs wanting in the bare ploughlands. The little river
+Ivel, which leaps suddenly to light near Baldock, and thence races
+northward to join the Bedfordshire Ouse, is a clear trout-stream by
+whose banks it is pleasant (whatever the trespass notices may threaten)
+to wander, and to watch the quick-glancing fish. At the hamlet of
+Radwell, in a moist copse, there is a patch of the rare monk's-hood, a
+poisonous flower of which later mention will be made. A joint tributary
+of the Ouse, and not less inviting, is the oddly named Hiz, which has
+its source on Oughton Common, a boggy flat near Hitchin, where both the
+butterwort and the grass of Parnassus are recorded as having grown and
+may perchance be growing still: as for the marsh orchis, one cannot
+cross the Common without seeing it.
+
+Then at Ickleford, a village on the banks of the Hiz, there is a pond
+which has been "occupied" (to use a military term) by the water-soldier,
+a stout aquatic which takes its name from the rigid swordlike leaves
+enclosing the three-petaled flowers. Peculiar to the eastern counties,
+this water-soldier is said to have been introduced at Ickleford over
+half a century ago; and there it now makes a fine array, having thriven
+wonderfully in spite of the worn-out pots and pans, and other refuse,
+for which, in Hertfordshire as elsewhere, the nearest pool or stream is
+thought a fit receptacle.
+
+A mile or two west of the source of the Hiz at Oughton Head, stands High
+Down, where begins or ends, according to the direction of the wayfarer,
+the northern escarpment of the Chilterns, at this point crossed,
+recrossed, and crossed again, by the curiously indented boundary-line
+between Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; and here on the steep front of
+the Pirton and Barton hills, in the one county or the other, may be seen
+in early spring the most beautiful of English anemones, the
+pasque-flower. On the few occasions when I have visited the place the
+summer was well advanced, and I was too late for that gorgeous flower; I
+had to content myself with the pyramidal orchis at the foot of the
+hills, and with great blossoming sheets of white candytuft in the fields
+above.
+
+For all these excursions there is no better starting-point than
+Letchworth, first of Garden Cities, which has sprung rapidly into being
+from what was until recent years an unadorned expanse of agricultural
+ground with Norton Common as its centre. This Common, originally a bit
+of wild fen, now almost surrounded by cottages and gardens, is to the
+nature-lover the most attractive feature of Letchworth; and though its
+flora has inevitably suffered from the inroads of the juvenile
+population, it can still show such plants as the marsh orchis, the small
+valerian, and the rare sulphur-coloured trefoil. It is watered by a
+diminutive river--the unceremonious might say ditch--known as the Pix,
+whose current, like that of the Cam, would almost seem to be determined
+by the direction of the wind, but is reputed to flow northward, to join
+its fleeter brethren, the Hiz and the Ivel, in their course to the
+Ouse.
+
+I mention this rather forlorn stream, because it has sometimes occurred
+to me that, as an attempt is made to protect the wild birds on Norton
+Common, it might be expedient to lend a helping hand also to the
+flowers, or even to embellish the banks of the Pix (and so to re-invite
+the pixies to sport thereby), with a few hardy riverside plants, such as
+comfrey, tansy, hemp-agrimony, purple loosestrife, and yellow
+loosestrife, which were probably once native there, and would almost
+certainly flourish in such a spot. Is it legitimate thus to come to the
+rescue of wild nature? That is a question on which botanists are not
+quite agreed, and its consideration shall therefore be reserved for the
+following chapter.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE SOWER OF TARES
+
+    An enemy hath done this.
+
+
+THE sowing of wildflowers is deprecated by some botanists, presumably as
+an interference with natural processes, an unauthorized attempt to play
+Providence in the vegetable kingdom; but the subject is one that seems
+to call for fuller discussion than it usually receives.
+
+We are told in the parable that the man who sowed tares among the wheat
+was an enemy; and certainly if there was an intention to injure the crop
+the expression was not too strong. But I have sometimes wondered whether
+the reprehensible act may not have been that of some botanical
+enthusiast, who, loving wildflowers not wisely but too well, was trying
+to save from extinction some rare weed of the cornfields which was
+disappearing under improved methods of culture.
+
+That this way of augmenting the flora of a country is nowadays not
+uncommon may be guessed from the frequent occurrence in botanical works
+of the comment "probably planted." Only a few pages back, I referred to
+the case of a pond in Hertfordshire now strongly held by a battalion of
+water-soldiers, the descendants of imported plants. There is evidence,
+too, that the practice has occasionally been indulged in by naturalists
+of great distinction, an amusing instance being that of the venerable
+and much-respected Gerarde, whose description of the peony as growing
+wild near Gravesend drew from his editor, Johnson, the following remark:
+"I have beene told that our author himselfe planted the peionie there,
+and afterwards seemed to finde it there by accident; and I doe believe
+it was so, because none before or since have ever seene or heard of it
+growing wilde in any part of this kingdome."[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: _The Herball_, by J. Gerarde. Enlarged and amended by
+Thomas Johnson, 1636.]
+
+Again, it is stated in Canon Vaughan's _Wild Flowers of Selborne_ that
+Gilbert White himself "was once guilty of this misdemeanour." He sowed,
+not tares in wheat, but seeds of the grass of Parnassus in the Hampshire
+bogs, and sowed them according to his own statement unsuccessfully; it
+would appear, however, from what Canon Vaughan discovered that White was
+"more successful than he imagined." However that may be, the question
+that arises is whether a judicious extension of the range of wildflowers
+by the agency of man is really a thing to be censured. May not a
+flower-lover occasionally sow his "wild oats"?
+
+It must be admitted that the objections to such a practice are not
+retrospective, for if it be a misdemeanour, it is one that is condoned,
+perhaps hallowed, by time. For as it is impossible to draw a strict line
+between flowers that were accidentally imported or "escapes" from
+ancient gardens, and those that were planted deliberately, we wisely ask
+no questions in the case of old-established plants of foreign origin,
+but receive them into our flora as aliens that have become naturalized
+and are honourably classed as "denizens"; when they have once made good
+their tenure of the soil, it seems to matter little by what means they
+arrived. Thus, for example, the starry trefoil, which colonized the
+Shoreham shingles over a century ago, having apparently come as a
+stowaway on board some foreign ship, was not only tolerated but highly
+regarded by English botanists, and its recent destruction is felt to be
+a national loss. Would it have detracted from its value, if, as indeed
+may have happened, it had been purposely sown on the beach? On the
+contrary, it seems desirable that it should now be restored in that
+manner.
+
+Such planting, of course, if done at all, should be done circumspectly,
+and on a fixed principle, not as an amusement for irresponsible persons
+or children. I know a flower-lover who, in a district where that
+beautiful St. John's-wort, the tutsan, was dwindling through
+depredations, or through some unexplained malady, carefully restored
+the balance in a score or so of suitable spots; and surely such action
+was much to be commended. But it is not desired that everyone should be
+planting tutsan everywhere; nor is there any danger of such a fashion
+arising, for there is much less tendency to plant than to pluck, to
+create than to destroy; and for that reason it would be folly to
+reintroduce any rare plant like the lady's slipper, where the collector
+would quickly reap what the enthusiast had sown.
+
+Such was the objection, it seems to me, to a proposal made some years
+ago by Edward Carpenter and others, that the diminishing numbers of the
+rarer butterflies should be reinforced by breeding. One would not
+willingly repeat the comedy of the angling craze, which solemnly stocks
+rivers with fish in order to pull them out again for pastime.
+
+Nor, because _some_ planting of wildflowers may be unobjectionable, does
+it follow that all such enterprises are deserving of praise. A recent
+announcement that the Llanberis side of Snowdon, a locality rich in
+British mountain flowers, was being sown by Kew experts with the seeds
+of a number of "Alpines" from Switzerland, was likely to be more
+agreeable to rock-gardeners than to mountain-lovers, who have a regard
+for the distinctive character of Snowdon itself, and of its native
+flora. A country which has allowed its finest mountain to be exploited
+for commercial purposes, as Snowdon has been, is perhaps hardly in a
+position to protest against a Welsh hillside being planted with alien
+Swiss flowers, and even with Chinese rhododendrons; but nevertheless
+such schemes are thoroughly incongruous and barbaric. What sort of
+mountains do we desire to have? A piece of nature, or a nursery-garden?
+A Snowdon, or a Snowdon-cum-Kew?
+
+Be it understood, then, that the sowing of tares is by no means
+recommended as a practice: all that is here urged is that a sweeping
+condemnation of it is not warranted by the facts, inasmuch as
+circumstances, not dogma, must in each case decide whether it be
+blameworthy, or harmless, or beneficial. And apart from common sense,
+there is one natural safeguard which will prevent any undue growth of
+wildflowers, viz. the remarkable fastidiousness of the choicer plants in
+regard to soil and conditions: they will flourish where it suits them to
+flourish, not elsewhere. Certain auxiliaries, too, Nature has in the
+rabbits, water-voles, and other wild animals that are herbivorous in
+their tastes; for it is very interesting to observe how quickly the
+appearance of a strange plant will attract the attention of such
+gourmands.
+
+I was once the owner of a sloping meadow in which there were some
+springs; and thinking it would be pleasant to have a water-garden I had
+a small pond made, into which I introduced some aquatic plants, and
+among them, most accommodating of all, the water-violet, which grew
+lustily and sent up a number of its graceful stalks with whorls of pink
+blossoms. But just at that time a water-vole took up his residence
+there, and developing a remarkable fondness for a new savour in his
+salads, quickly made havoc of my _Hottonia palustris_. The neighbours
+assured me I must trap him; but to treat a fellow-vegetarian in that way
+was out of the question, especially as his confidence in me was so great
+that he would sit nibbling my favourite aquatic, which seemed also to be
+_his_ favourite, while I stood within a few yards. It was clear that if
+the cult of the water-violet involved the killing of the water-vole it
+had got to be abandoned.
+
+In this way, among others, does Nature protect herself against an
+excessive interference on man's part with the distribution of
+wildflowers.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+DALES OF DERBYSHIRE
+
+    Deeper and narrower grew the dell;
+    It seemed some mountain, rent and riven,
+    A channel for the stream had given,
+    So high the cliffs of limestone gray
+    Hung beetling o'er the torrent's way.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+THE limestone Dales of Derbyshire are narrow and deep, and their
+streams, when visible (for they often lurk underground), are swift,
+strong, and of crystal clearness. The sides of the glens are in some
+places precipitous with bluffs and pinnacles of grey rock; in others,
+ridged and streaked with terraces of alternate crag and turf; above the
+cliffs there is often a tableland of bleak pastures divided by stone
+walls, as dreary a scene as could be imagined, when contrasted with the
+picturesque dales below.
+
+The flowers of these limestone valleys immediately recall those of the
+chalk: the marjoram, the basil, the great knapweed, the traveller's-joy,
+the rock-rose, the musk-thistle--these and many other familiar friends
+make us seem, at first sight, to be back in Sussex or Surrey. But in
+reality we are a hundred and fifty miles nearer to the arctic zone, and
+that difference is clearly reflected in the flora; for when we look
+around, a number of new plants make their appearance, of which a dozen
+or more are very rare, or quite unknown, in the south. I once lived for
+several years on the hills above Chesterfield, a good way to the east of
+this limestone country; and to visit the nearest of the Dales there was
+a walk of seven miles, to and fro, across the intervening high moors
+that form the southern buttress of the Pennines. Stoney Middleton is far
+from being one of the pleasantest of Peakland villages; but such was the
+interest of its flora that the fourteen-mile trudge, and more, was often
+undertaken during the summer months.
+
+After traversing the great heathery moors devoted to the cult of the
+grouse, and descending from the rocky rampart of gritstone known as
+Curbar Edge, one crosses the valley of the Derwent; and here a pause may
+be made to notice a patch of sweet Cicely, one of the loveliest of the
+umbelliferous tribe. It is a charming sight, as it stands up tall in the
+sunshine, with its soft feathery cream-white masses of foliage and its
+fernlike leaflets; too fair and fragile, it would seem, for human hands,
+for it droops very soon if cut. Every part of it--stalk, leaves,
+flowers, and fruit--has the same aromatic fragrance (its local name is
+"anise"), and so gracious is it to sight, scent, and touch, that one
+longs to bathe one's senses in its luxuriance.
+
+Middleton Dale, naturally beautiful, but sadly deformed by lime-kilns,
+is famous for a cliff known as the Lover's Leap, from which an enamoured
+maiden is said to have thrown herself down. Had it been the love of
+flowers, rather than of man, that tempted her to that dizzy verge, there
+would have been no cause for surprise; for there are many alluring
+plants on the ledges of the scarp, including a brilliant show of wild
+wallflowers. In May and June there may be found along the northern side
+of the dale the yellow petals of the spring cinquefoil (_potentilla
+verna_), a gem of a flower, which, in Mr. Reginald Farrer's words,
+"clings to the white cliff-face, and from far off you see a splash of
+gold on the greyness." A month later the equally attractive Nottingham
+catch-fly (_silene nutans_) will be abundant on the rocks; a plant of
+nocturnal habits which expands its petals and becomes fragrant in the
+evening, but "nods," as its Latin name avows, in the daytime, when it
+wears a sleepy and somewhat dissipated look, like a wassailer--a white
+campion that has been "on spree." By night its beauty is beyond cavil.
+
+On the lower slopes is a colony of a still stranger-looking flower, the
+woolly-headed thistle, whose involucre is so bulky, and its scales so
+densely wrapped in white down, that it has an almost grotesque
+appearance, as of a thistle with "swelled head." It is, however, a very
+handsome plant; and when growing in vast numbers, as I have seen it in
+one of its special haunts, near Wychwood Forest, in Oxfordshire, it
+makes a glorious spectacle.
+
+Of the three species of saxifrages--the rue-leaved, the meadow, and the
+mossy--that thrive along the bottom of the dale, the two former are
+southern as well as northern flowers; but the presence of the mossy
+saxifrage is a sign that we are in a mountainous region, and as such it
+is always welcome. With these grows the graceful vernal sandwort,
+another flower of the hills, and so often the companion of saxifrages
+that it is naturally associated with them in the mind.
+
+But Middleton Dale, the nearest to my starting-point, and therefore the
+most frequently visited by me, is much surpassed in floral wealth by the
+long valley of the Wye, which in its course from Buxton to Bakewell
+bears the names successively of Wye Dale, Chee Dale, Miller's Dale, and
+Monsal Dale. In one or another of these four glens nearly all the rarer
+limestone flowers have their station. You may find, for instance, three
+very local crucifers: the two whitlow-grasses, _draba incana_ and _draba
+muralis_, remarkable only as being scarce in other parts of the kingdom;
+and the really beautiful little _Hutchinsia_, with its tiny white
+blossoms and finely cut pinnate leaves. Jacob's-ladder, a handsome blue
+flower, very uncommon in a wild state, is also native on the bluffs and
+slopes in Chee Dale and elsewhere: in fact a stroll along almost any of
+the limestone escarpments will bring new treasures to sight.
+
+But the flower which I best love is one which grows by the
+streamside--in Wye Dale it is in profusion--the modest water-avens,
+often strangely undervalued by writers who describe it as "dingy." Thus
+in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ it is stated that this avens "is more
+remarkable for having been one of the favourites, the whims, the
+caprices of the great Linnaeus, than for anything else: it is hard to say
+what, in a British meadow-weed, could so take the fancy of the Master."
+Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre
+goes on to say that "it is impossible to account, logically, for
+attachments and sympathies."
+
+Logic, truly, would be out of place in such a connection; but it is not
+difficult to understand Linnaeus's feelings towards the water-avens.
+There is a rare beauty in the droop of its bell-like head, and in its
+soft and subdued tints--the deep rufous brown of the long sepals,
+through which peep the silky petals in hues that range from creamy white
+to vinous red, and all steeped in a quiet radiance as of some old
+stained glass. I must own to thinking it the most tenderly beautiful of
+all English wildflowers. The hybrid between the water-avens and the
+common avens is occasionally found by the Wye: one which I saw in
+Miller's Dale had green sepals and petals of pale yellow.
+
+The Alpine penny-cress (_thlaspi alpestre_), a crucifer native on
+limestone rocks, may be seen on the High Tor at Matlock, where it grows
+with the vernal sandwort on debris at the mouth of caves; a graceful
+little plant with white flowers and a smooth unbranched stem so closely
+clasped by the narrow leaves as to give it the look of a perfoliate.
+
+One other limestone district shall be mentioned; the hills round
+Castleton. Cave Dale, approached by a narrow gorge close to the village,
+is well worth the flower-lover's attention; for bleak and bare as it is,
+its slippery sides harbour some interesting plants, such as the mountain
+rue (_thalictrum minus_), and the scurvy-grass (_cochlearia alpina_),
+both in considerable quantity. In the Winnatts, too, the steep ravine
+which overhangs the road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith, one may
+find Jacob's-ladder and other rarities on the rocks; and the gorgeous
+mountain pansy (_viola lutea_) is not far distant on the upland heaths
+and pastures.
+
+The list is far from being exhausted; but enough has been said to show
+that there is no lack of entertainment among these limestone dales. To
+enter one of them, after crossing the moorland from the dreary coal
+district of east Derbyshire, is like stepping from penury to plenty,
+from wilderness to paradise: there is a change of colouring that
+instantly attracts the eye. Even in early spring the little shining
+crane's-bill decks the walls and lower rocks with its rose-petaled
+flowers; and at midsummer the more showy stonecrop flings a veritable
+cloth of gold over the crags and lawns. Few localities present so many
+charming flowers in so limited a space.
+
+And now let us turn from the limestone valleys to those of the millstone
+grit.
+
+The controversy as to which part of Derbyshire best deserves the name of
+"The Peak" has always seemed a vain one, not merely because there is no
+peak in the county at all, but because no connoisseur can doubt for a
+moment that the district which alone has the true characteristics of a
+mountain is the great triangular plateau of gritstone known as
+Kinderscout. Less beautiful than the limestone dales, with their
+beetling crags and wealth of flowers, the wilder region surrounding "the
+Scout" has the advantage of being a real bit of mountain scenery, topped
+as it is with black "tors" and "towers" that rise out of the heather,
+and flanked with rocky "edges" from which its steep "cloughs" descend
+into the valleys below.
+
+Unfortunately, this great rocky tableland has of late years become
+almost a _terra incognita_ to the nature-lover, as a result of the
+agreement which was made, after prolonged controversy, between the Peak
+District Society and the grouse-shooting landlords, inasmuch as, while
+permitting the traveller to skirt the shoulders of the hill, it excluded
+him wholly from its summit.
+
+With the exception of the heather, the bilberry, and a few kindred
+species, the plants of the gritstone hills are sparse; but there is
+one, the cloudberry--so-called, according to Gerarde's rather
+magniloquent description, because "it groweth naturally upon the tops of
+high mountains ... where the clouds are lower than the tops of the same
+all winter long"--which well repays a pilgrimage. It is a prostrate and
+spineless bramble (_rubus chamaemorus_), highly valued in northern
+countries for its rich orange-coloured fruit. It grows thickly on the
+ground, making a dark-green patch in marked contrast to the coarse
+herbage; and towards the end of June one may see a profusion of the
+large white blossoms and a few early formed berries at the same time.
+There is a good-sized plot of it near the summit of the pass that
+crosses the shoulder of Kinderscout from Edale Head.
+
+But of the plants that grow on the Scout itself I am unable to speak;
+for my only visit to it--not reckoning an unsuccessful attempt when I
+was turned back by a keeper--took place in the depth of a very snowy
+winter. It was on the afternoon of a frosty January day, when the sun
+was already low, that in the company of my friend Bertram Lloyd, and
+armed with a passport, in the form of a letter of permission, given us
+by the courtesy of one of the owners of the shooting, I climbed from
+Edale, through the region of right-of-way into that of flagrant
+trespass. We felt an unusual sense of legality, as we passed a
+weather-beaten notice-board, with a half-obliterated threat that
+trespassers would be "--cuted," whether executed, electrocuted, or
+prosecuted was left to the imagination of the offender; and I think the
+strangeness of his position was rather embarrassing to my companion, who
+is such a confirmed trespasser that he feels as if something must be
+amiss unless there is a gamekeeper to be reckoned with--like the
+mountain ram, in Thompson-Seton's story, who was so accustomed to be
+hunted that he became moody and restless when his pursuer was not in
+sight.
+
+But, at the time of our visit, no passport was demanded; for the
+keepers, like the grouse themselves, appeared to have deserted the
+heights for the valleys. Indeed, hardly any life at all was to be seen,
+with the exception of a grey mountain hare, couched upon a stack of
+rock, who regarded us with a mild and curious eye as we passed some two
+hundred feet above him, and seemed to be satisfied that we were
+harmless. Nor was this lack of life surprising, for a more desolate
+scene could hardly be imagined--a great snow-clad "moss," intersected by
+deep ruts, which, being choked with snow, had somewhat of the appearance
+of crevasses, and punctuated here and there with the black masonry of
+the tors. From the highest point that we reached, marked in the ordnance
+map as 2,088 feet, there was a wonderful sunset view, though the
+Manchester district that lies to the west of the Scout was hidden in
+lurid fog. It is said that Snowdon, a hundred miles distant, has been
+seen from this point. It was certainly not visible upon the occasion to
+which I refer.
+
+It is impossible to visit this high mountain plateau, lying as it does
+at about an equal distance from Manchester and Sheffield, without
+feeling that what is now a private grouse-moor must, before many years
+have passed, become a nationalized park or "reservation"--a playground
+for the dwellers in the great Midland cities, and a sanctuary for wild
+animals and plants.
+
+The time will assuredly come when the sport of the few will have to give
+way to the health and recreation of the many.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+NO THOROUGHFARE!
+
+    Trespassers will be prosecuted.
+
+
+THE subject of trespassing mentioned in the preceding chapter, has a
+very close and personal interest for the adventurous flower-lover; for
+of all incentives to ignore the familiar notice-board with its hackneyed
+words of warning, none perhaps is more potent than the possibility that
+some rare and long-sought wildflower is to be found on the forbidden
+land. The appeal is one that no explorer can resist. If "stout Cortez"
+himself, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific, had seen that
+ocean labelled as "strictly private and preserved," could he have
+desisted from his quest?
+
+There is moreover a good deal to be said in extenuation of trespassing
+as a summer recreation; and if landlords go on at their present rate, in
+closing footpaths and excluding the public from green fields and
+hedgerows, trespassing will perhaps establish itself as one of our
+recognized national diversions. Hitherto, it must be confessed, it has
+remained to some extent in disrepute; doubtless, through its being so
+largely indulged in by poachers and other evil-doers, who have given a
+bad name to a practice which in itself is innocent and blameless enough.
+Most people, especially landlords and gamekeepers, have a fixed belief
+that a trespasser's purpose must be a lawless and mischievous one. Why
+so? Is it not possible that some trespassers may have other objects than
+to steal pheasants' eggs or snare rabbits? If huntsmen when following
+the hounds are permitted, not only to trespass, but to damage crops and
+fences, why should the naturalist be molested when harmlessly following
+his own inclinations in choice of a country ramble. Is the pursuit of
+the fox a surer proof of honest intentions than the pursuit of natural
+history? It appears that some landowners think so. "Trespassers will be
+prosecuted," say the notices that everywhere stare us in the face.
+
+Was there ever such a lying legend? Trespassers will _not_ be
+prosecuted, for the sufficient reason that in English law trespassing is
+not an offence. Of course, if any injury be done to property, the owner
+can sue for damages, but a harmless trespasser can only be requested to
+depart, though, if he be ill-advised enough to refuse to go, he may be
+forcibly ejected. We see, therefore, that the threatened "prosecution"
+of trespassers is in reality merely a _brutum fulmen_ launched by
+landlords at a too credulous public, a pious fraud which has been far
+more efficacious than such kindred notices as "Beware the dog," or
+"Beware the bull," though these, too, have done good service in their
+time. Trespassers will not be prosecuted, provided that they do no sort
+of damage, and that if their presence is objected to they politely
+retire. With these slight precautions and limitations, a trespasser may
+go where he will, and enjoy the study of Nature in her most secluded and
+"strictly private" recesses. He thus himself becomes, in one sense, a
+lord of the soil; but his domain is far more extensive and unencumbered
+than that of any actual landlord. He enjoys all that is best in park,
+woodland, or mountain; and if he is "warned off" one estate he can
+afford to smile at the prohibition, since many other regions are open to
+him, and he can confidently look forward to a visit to fresh woods and
+pastures new on the morrow.
+
+In the course of these rambles the trespasser will probably, like
+Ulysses, have some curious experiences of men and of notice-boards. It
+is very instructive to observe the various types of the landlord class,
+and their different methods of treating the intruder whom they meet on
+their fields. There is the indignant landlord, who can scarcely conceal
+his wrath at the astounding audacity of one who is deliberately crossing
+his land without having come "on business." There is the despairing
+landlord, who has been so broken by previous invasions that he is now
+content with a shrug of the shoulders and a remark that the place is
+"quite private, you know." There is the courteous landlord, who
+politely assumes that you have lost your way, and naively offers to
+conduct you to the high-road by the shortest cut; and there is the
+mildly ironical, who, as in a case which I remember on a Surrey
+hillside, remarks as he passes you: "There goes my heather."
+
+I have heard it said that one can sometimes divine the character of a
+landlord from the wording of his notice-boards, and I believe from my
+own experiences that there is truth in the idea. Certainly the
+notice-board is the landlord's favourite method of defending the privacy
+of his estate, and for obvious reasons; for not only is it the least
+troublesome and expensive way of conveying the desired warning to
+would-be trespassers, but the salutary fiction regarding the
+"prosecution" of offenders is thus publicly and permanently impressed on
+the agricultural mind. There is not such entire uniformity in the
+wording of notice-boards as might be supposed. Of course by far the
+commonest form is the well-known "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be
+prosecuted as the law directs," in which the unconscious irony contained
+in the last four words has always struck me as especially delightful. To
+this is often added the words "and all dogs shot," in which the
+experienced trespasser will detect signs of a certain roughness and
+inhumanity of temperament on the part of the owner. More original forms
+of expression are by no means uncommon. Sometimes the warning is
+emphasized by the bold statement, indicating the possession by the
+landlord of humorous or imaginative faculties, that "the police have
+orders to watch." Sometimes, but more rarely, the personal element is
+boldly introduced, as in the assertion, which might formerly be seen on
+a notice-board in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Lake
+District, "This is my land. Trespassers, etc." In some cases the wording
+has evidently been left to the care of subordinates, and hence result
+some curiosities of literary composition. "Private. Beware of dogs," is
+an instance of this kind, in which the ambiguity of the allusion to
+dogs, whether those of the landlord or the trespasser, seems almost
+oracular. In these and other ways a certain zest is lent to the
+excursions or rather the _in_cursions, of the trespasser, which lifts
+them above the level of ordinary walking exercise.
+
+In the case of wealthy landowners, the duty of warning off the
+trespasser devolves on gamekeepers, who, being less emotional than their
+employers, are a far less interesting study. Stolid and furry, and
+apparently endowed with only the animal instincts of the victims whom
+they delight in tracking and trapping, they are by far the least
+intelligent people whom the trespasser encounters; they are, in fact, no
+better than breathing and walking notice-boards, with the disadvantage
+that they cannot be so absolutely disregarded. It is unwise to argue
+with them; for reason is at a discount in such encounters and there is
+the possibility, in some districts, of their having recourse to
+personal violence, in the knowledge that if the matter should come
+before local magistrates the keeper's word would be honoured in
+preference to that of the trespasser. There is a sanctity in the word
+"Preserve."
+
+An experience of this sort actually befell a friend of mine, who himself
+narrated it in print. A devoted botanist and nature-lover, he was twice
+in the same day found trespassing by a gigantic gamekeeper, who, on the
+second occasion, ended all parley in the manner described in the
+following "Mystical Ballad," wherein the writer has ventured somewhat to
+idealize the circumstances, though the story is based on the facts.
+
+PRESERVED.
+
+    A Poet through a haunted wood
+      Roamed fearless and serene,
+    Nor flinched when on his path there stood
+      A Form in Velveteen.
+
+    "Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead,
+      My footsteps shall not swerve."
+    "You're trespassing," the Vision said:
+      "This place is a preserve."
+
+    "How so? Is some dark secret here
+      Preserved? some tale of shame?"
+    The Spectre scowled, but answered clear:
+      "What we preserve is Game."
+
+    Yet still the Poet's heart was nerved
+      With Phantoms to dispute:
+    "Then tell me, why is Game preserved?"
+      The Goblin yelled: "To shoot."
+
+    "But Game that's shot is Game destroyed,
+      Not Game preserved, I ween."
+    It seemed such argument annoyed
+      That Form in Velveteen;
+
+    For swift It gripped him, as he spake,
+      And, making light the load,
+    Upheaved, and flung him from the brake
+      Into the King's high-road.
+
+    And as that Bard, still arguing hard,
+      High o'er the palings flew,
+    He vows he heard this ghostly word:
+      "We're not preserving _you_."
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Long time he lay on that highway,
+      Dazed by so weird a fall;
+    Then rose and cried, as home he hied:
+      "The Lord preserve us all!"
+
+I have often thought it was an error on the part of the trespassing poet
+not to explain to his assailant that he was a botanist; for "botanist,"
+as I can testify, is a blessed word which has a soothing effect upon
+many of the most irascible landowners or their satellites. Personally I
+never presume to call myself botanist, except when I am found
+trespassing, on which occasions I have rarely known it to fail. I recall
+a Saturday afternoon when, as I was rambling in a Derbyshire dale with
+Bertram Lloyd, and admiring the flowers, we were accosted by the owner
+in person, who inquired with a sort of suppressed fury whether we knew
+that we were on his estate. We said we were botanists, and the effect
+was magical; in less than a minute we were courteously permitted to go
+where we would and stay as long as we liked.
+
+For botany is regarded as a scientific study; and even sportsmen do not
+like to incur the reproach of being enemies to science. Their better
+feelings may be conveyed in a familiar Virgilian line:
+
+    _Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni._[15]
+
+[Footnote 15: Not so obtuse of heart we Tyrians are.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+LIMESTONE COASTS AND CLIFFS
+
+    Where the most beautiful wildflowers grow, there man's
+    spirit is fed.--THOREAU.
+
+
+A LIMESTONE soil is everywhere rich in flowers--we have seen what the
+midland dales can produce--but it is especially so in the close
+neighbourhood of the sea. Two instances suggest themselves; one from a
+Carnarvonshire promontory, the Orme's Head; the other from Arnside
+Knott, in Westmorland.
+
+Fifty years ago the Great Orme was a wild and picturesque headland,
+girdled by a footpath which made a circuit of the beetling cliffs, and
+crossed by a few other tracks leading to the telegraph station at the
+summit, St. Tudno's Church, and elsewhere; but in most respects still in
+a primitive and unimpaired condition. I knew almost every yard of it as
+a boy; and I remember, among other attractions, a hermit who lived in a
+cave, and better still a wild cat--probably a fugitive from some
+Llandudno lodging-house--who had her home in a stack of rocks on the
+western side of the Head. On the western shore of the isthmus there was
+at that time only one house; it belonged to Dean Liddell, famous as
+joint author of the Greek dictionary distressfully known to generations
+of students as _Liddell and Scott._
+
+But now, owing to the "development" of Llandudno, this once beautiful
+foreland has become a place almost of horror, vulgarized by trams,
+motor-roads, golf-links, and all the appurtenances of "civilization;"
+and were it not for the wildflowers, it might well be shunned by those
+who knew it in old days. Flowers, however, are very tenacious of their
+established haunts, and the remark made in Mr. J. E. Griffith's _Flora
+of Carnarvonshire_ still holds good, that "the flora of this district is
+quite unique, in consequence of the number of species found here, and
+the rarity of many of them." The luxuriance of the flowers is indeed a
+sight which can almost make one forget the "improvements" that have
+ruined the scenery.
+
+Among the plants inhabiting the rocky banks above the shore are the blue
+vernal squill, the sea stork's-bill, sweet alyssum, hound's-tongue,
+hemlock, henbane, mullein, and tree-mallow: to these may be added what
+constitutes a herb-garden readymade--fennel, wormwood, vervain, white
+horehound, wild sage, succory, and Alexanders. On the higher cliffs are
+the curious samphire, pink thrift, white scurvy-grass, and great tufts
+of sea-cabbage, now rarer and more local than formerly, but here waving
+its pale yellow pennons in abundance. Most charming of all, the
+brilliant blood-red crane's-bill, together with two kinds of rock-rose
+(the hoary dwarf species as well as the common one), makes rich splashes
+of colour on the grey limestone ledges. A little back from the sea,
+among the bluffs that overhang the town, you may light upon the
+sleepy-looking catch-fly (_silene nutans_); the tiny Hutchinsia; and in
+one or two places the shrub cotoneaster, which is said to be native only
+upon the Great Orme. I have, however, seen it growing apparently wild at
+Capel Curig, and at a greater distance from houses than in its Llandudno
+station.
+
+Nor is it only the Great Orme that shows this floral wealth: the Little
+Orme has the rare Welsh stonecrop (_sedum Forsterianum_); and on another
+height in the same district, the small circular hill known as Deganwy
+Rocks, there is a profusion of flowers. When I revisited it a few years
+ago, not having set foot on it for nearly half a century, I found that
+the villas of Deganwy had crept up almost to the base of the rocks, and
+on another side there was--still worse--a camp of German prisoners, with
+armed sentries supervising their labours; yet even there, close above
+such scenes, were growing plants which might mark a memorable day in the
+annals of a flower-lover, notably the maiden pink and the
+milk-thistle--the "holy" thistle, as it is not inaptly called. The
+pinks, a lovely band, were sprinkled along the turf at the foot of the
+rocks; the thistles were almost at the top; between them on a stony
+ledge nestled a quantity of viper's bugloss, and with it some borage,
+two kindred plants which I had never before seen in company.
+
+Nearly all the members of the Borage group are interesting--lungwort,
+alkanet, forget-me-not, hound's-tongue, and bugloss--but the borage
+itself, a roadside weed in South Europe, and in this country merely an
+immigrant and "casual," is to me the most precious of all. My earliest
+recollections of it, I must own, are as an ingredient of claret-cup at
+Cambridge, its silver-grey stems floating in the wine with a pleasant
+roughness to the lip; but in those unregenerate days we did not know the
+real virtue of the herb, famous from old time, as Gerarde says, for its
+power "to exhilarate and make the mind glad, to comfort the heart, and
+for driving away of sorrow." And certainly, in another and better use,
+it _does_ comfort the heart and drive sorrow away; for its "gallant blew
+flowers" are of all blues the loveliest, and the black anthers give it a
+peculiarly poignant look which reminds one somehow of the wistfulness of
+a Gainsborough portrait. In the list of my best-beloved flowers it ranks
+among the highest.
+
+Looking north-east from the Orme's Head, one may see on a clear day,
+across some sixty miles of water, the limestone hills of Westmorland,
+reckoned as part of Lakeland, but geologically, botanically, and in
+general character a quite separate district. Arnside Knott, a bluff
+overlooking the estuary of the river Kent where it widens into
+Morecambe Bay, is the presiding genius of a tract of shore and forest to
+which the name of "Lily-land" has been given by Mr. J. A. Barnes in a
+sketch of Arnside, and which he describes as "a perfect paradise of
+wildflowers." Let us suppose ourselves transported thither, and see how
+the claim holds good.
+
+The lily of the valley is one of those favoured plants which are
+everywhere highly esteemed; even the man who in general cares but little
+for wildflowers takes this one to his heart, or, what is worse, to his
+garden. I have already quoted Mr. C. A. Johns's queer appreciation of
+this native British wildflower as "a universally admired garden plant."
+On the wooded hill known as Arnside Park the "May lily," as it used to
+be called (and here it is certainly not "of the valley"), covers many
+acres of ground, and justifies the title "Lily-land" as applied to the
+Arnside neighbourhood. What I found still more interesting was an almost
+equal abundance of the stone bramble (_rubus saxatilis_), which grows
+intermixed with the lilies over a large portion of the wood.
+
+On these Westmorland Cliffs, as in those of Carnarvonshire, the
+blood-red crane's-bill is conspicuous, but it is much less plentiful,
+nor are the outstanding flowers of the two localities the same. One of
+the commonest at Arnside is the tall ploughman's spikenard, known
+locally as "frankincense": and on the lawns that skirt the Knott one
+often sees the mountain-cudweed or "cat's-foot," the gromwell or "grey
+millet," and the beautiful little dwarf orchis. The district is rather
+rich in orchids; among others, I found the rare narrow-leaved
+helleborine (_cephalanthera ensifolia_) in the Arnside woods. The deadly
+nightshade is frequent; so, too, is the four-leaved herb-Paris, which a
+resident described to me as being here "almost a weed." But there are
+two other flowers that demand more special mention.
+
+In a lane near Arnside Tower, a ruin that lies below the Knott on its
+inland side, there is a considerable growth of green hellebore,
+apparently at the very spot where its presence was recorded two
+centuries ago. Though not a very rare plant, it is extremely local; and
+owing to its strongly marked features, the large palmate leaves and pale
+green flowers, is not likely to go unnoticed.
+
+But the rarest of Arnside flowers is, or was, another poisonous plant of
+the _ranunculus_ order, the baneberry, for which the writer of
+"Lily-land," as he tells us, "hunted for years without success; till its
+exact locality was at last revealed to me by one who knew, in a
+situation so obvious that I felt like a man who has hunted through every
+room in the house for the spectacles on his own nose." Years later, on
+my certifying that I was not a knight of the trowel, Mr. Barnes was so
+kind as to confide to me this same secret that had been kept hidden from
+the uninitiate; but I found that the small plantation which had been
+the home of the baneberry, almost within Arnside itself, had recently
+been cut down, and though a few of the plants were still growing along
+the side of the field, they had ceased to flower, and possibly by this
+time they have ceased to exist. Even as it was, I felt myself fortunate
+to have seen the baneberry in one of its few native haunts. The pale
+green deeply cut leaves are much handsomer than those of its relatives
+the hellebore and the monk's-hood. Its raceme of white flowers and its
+black berries are also known to me; but alas, only in a garden.
+
+Where flowers are concerned, there is little truth in the saying that
+"comparisons are odious"; on the contrary it is both pleasant and
+profitable to compare not only plant with plant, but the flora of one
+fertile district with that of another. The natural scenery of Arnside is
+yet unspoilt, and for that reason it now offers greater attractions to
+the nature-lover than the ruined charms of Llandudno; but if he were
+asked, for botanical reasons only, to choose between a visit to the Orme
+and a visit to the Knott, the decision might be a less easy one. "How
+happy could I be with either!" would probably be his thought.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+ON PILGRIMAGE TO INGLEBOROUGH
+
+    It [rose-root] groweth very plentifully in the north of
+    England, especially in a place called Ingleborough Fels.
+
+    GERARDE.
+
+
+THERE is a tale by Herman Melville which deals with the strangeness of a
+first meeting between the inmates of two houses which face each other,
+far and high away, on opposite mountain ranges, and yet, though daily
+visible, have remained for years as mutually unknown as if they belonged
+to different worlds. It was with this story in my mind that I approached
+for the first time the moorland mass of Ingleborough, long familiar as
+seen from the Lake mountains, a square-topped height on the horizon to
+the south-east, but hitherto unvisited by me owing to the more imperious
+claims of the Great Gable and Scafell. But now, at last, I found myself
+on pilgrimage to Ingleborough; the impulse, long delayed, had seized me
+to stand on the summit of the Yorkshire fell, and, looking
+north-westward, to see the scene reversed.
+
+Another of Ingleborough's attractions was that it is the home of
+certain scarce and beautiful flowers, as has been pointed out in Mr.
+Reginald Farrer's interesting books on Alpine plants. Such exceptional
+rarities as the baneberry (_actaea spicata_), which grows among rocky
+crevices high up on the fell--not to mention the _arenaria gothica_,
+choicest of the sandworts--the mere visitor can hardly hope to discover;
+but there are other and less infrequent treasures upon the hill, beyond
+which my ambition did not aspire.
+
+As I ascended the barren marshy slopes that form the eastern flank, I
+realized once again how much more the labour of an ascent depends upon
+the character of the ground than upon the actual height to be scaled.
+Ingleborough is under 2,400 feet; yet it is far more toilsome to climb
+than many a rocky peak in Wales or Cumberland that rises hundreds of
+feet higher, and it is a relief at length to get a firm foothold on the
+rocks of millstone grit which form the summit. Thence, from the edges
+which drop sharply from the flat top, one looks out on the somewhat
+desolate fells stretching away on three sides--Pen-y-ghent to the east,
+Whernside to the north, and to the south the more distant forest of
+Pendle--but westward there is the gleam of sand or water in Morecambe
+Bay, and the eye hastens to greet the dim but ever glorious forms of the
+Lakeland mountains.
+
+In the affections of the mountain-lover Ingleborough can never be the
+rival of one of these; indeed, in the strict sense, it is not a
+mountain at all, but a high moor built on a base of limestone with a cap
+of grit. Still, there is grandeur in the steep scarps that guard its
+central stronghold; and its dark summit, when viewed from a distance
+crowning the successive tiers of grey terraces, has a strength and
+wildness of its own, and even suggests at points a likeness to the
+massive tower of the Great Gable. To one looking down from the topmost
+edges on the scattered piles of limestone below, the effect is very
+curious. You see, perhaps, a mile or two distant, what looks at first
+sight like a flock of sheep at pasture, but is soon discovered to be a
+stone flock which has no mortal shepherd. In other parts are wide white
+plateaux which, when visited, turn out to be a wilderness of low flat
+rocks, everywhere weather-worn and water-worn, scooped and scalloped
+into cells and basins, and so intersected by channels filled with ferns
+and grasses that one has to walk warily over it as over a reef at low
+tide.
+
+But to return to the flowers. At the summit were mossy saxifrage and
+vernal sandwort; and on the cliffs just below, to the western side, the
+big mountain stonecrop, rose-root, not unhandsome with its yellow
+blossoms, flourished in some abundance, even as it did when Gerarde
+wrote of it, nearly three hundred years ago. The purple saxifrage, an
+early spring flower, is also found on these rocks, but at the time when
+I visited the spot, in late June, its blossoming season was over, and
+nothing was visible but the leaves. There was little else but some
+hawkweeds; I turned my attention, therefore, to the flowers of the lower
+slopes.
+
+There is nothing more delightful, in descending a mountain, than to
+follow the leading of some rapid beck from its very source to the
+valley; and it is rather disconcerting, in these limestone regions, that
+the cavernous nature of the ground should make the presence of the
+streams so intermittent, and that one's chosen companion should not
+unfrequently disappear, just when his value is most appreciated, into
+some "gaping gill" or pot-hole.
+
+It is said of Walt Whitman that sometimes when a pilgrim was privileged
+to walk with him, and was perhaps thinking that their acquaintance was
+ripening to friendship, the good grey poet, with a curt nod and a
+careless "good-bye," would turn off abruptly and be gone. Even so it is
+with these wayward streams that course down the sides of Ingleborough.
+Just when one is on the best of terms with them, they vanish and are no
+more.
+
+But with the bird's-eye primrose tinging hillsides and hollows with its
+tender hue of pink, no other companionship was needed. A mountain
+flower, it is the fairest of all the _Primulaceae_, that band of fair
+sisters to which it belongs--primrose, cowslip, pimpernel, loosestrife,
+and money-wort--all beautiful and all favourites among young and old
+alike, whereever there is a love of flowers. It was worth while to make
+the pilgrimage to Ingleborough, if only to see this charming little
+plant in perfection on its native banks.
+
+Nor were other flowers lacking; the wild geraniums especially were in
+force. The shining crane's-bill gleamed on the pale limestone ledges;
+the wood crane's-bill, a local North-country species, gave a glint of
+purple in the copses at the foot of the fell; and still further down,
+below the village of Clapham, there were masses of the blue meadow
+crane's-bill (_geranium pratense_), the largest and not least handsome
+of the family. The water-avens was everywhere by the stream sides; and
+on a bank above the road the gladdon, or purple iris, was opening its
+dull-tinted flowers.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL
+
+     He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a
+     preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to
+     the civilized man.--EMERSON.
+
+
+I HAVE referred several times to Henry Thoreau, of Concord, in whose
+_Journal_ a great deal is said about wildflowers; and as the volumes are
+not easily accessible to English readers it may be worth while to select
+therefrom a few of the more interesting passages. In all that he wrote
+on the subject Thoreau appears less as the botanist than the
+flower-lover; indeed, he expressly observes that he himself comes under
+the head of the "Botanophilists," as Linnaeus termed them; viz. those who
+record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific
+standpoint. "I never studied botany," he said, "and do not to-day,
+systematically; the most natural system is so artificial. I wanted to
+know my neighbours, if possible; to get a little nearer to them." So
+great was his zest in cultivating this floral acquaintance that, as he
+tells us, he often visited a plant four or five miles from Concord half
+a dozen times within a fortnight, in order to note its time of
+flowering.
+
+Books he found, in general, unsatisfactory. "I asked a learned and
+accurate naturalist," he says, "who is at the same time the courteous
+guardian of a public library, to direct me to those works which
+contained the more particular popular account, or _biography_, of
+particular flowers--for I had trusted that each flower had had many
+lovers and faithful describers in past times--but he informed me that I
+had read all; that no one was acquainted with them, they were only
+catalogued like his books." It was the human aspect of the flower that
+Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw "pages
+about some fair flower's qualities as food or medicine, but perhaps not
+a sentence about its significance to the eye; as if the cowslip were
+better for 'greens' than for yellows." Thus he complained that botanies
+are "the prose of flowers," instead of what they ought to be, the
+poetry. He made an exception, however, in favour of old Gerarde's
+_Herball_.
+
+     His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly
+     superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not
+     according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He
+     brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted
+     in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His
+     leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are
+     green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to
+     a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe your object
+     in fresh English words rather than in these conventional
+     Latinisms!"
+
+Linnaeus, too, "the man of flowers," as he calls him, is praised by
+Thoreau. "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the
+science. Read Linnaeus at once, and come down from him as far as you
+please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how
+little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with
+Linnaeus."
+
+Thoreau's manner of botanizing was, like most of his habits, somewhat
+singular. His vasculum was his straw-hat. "I never used any other," he
+writes, "and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its
+dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry-table, I
+assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box." With this
+vasculum he professed himself more than content.
+
+     I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in
+     midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I
+     could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours
+     that arise from the head--at least, if you take a bath--which
+     preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come
+     fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they
+     have had no sprinkling.
+
+The joy of meeting with a new plant, a sensation known to all searchers
+after flowers, is more than once mentioned in the _Journal_: the
+discovery of a single flower hitherto unknown to him makes him feel as
+if he were in a wealth of novelties. "By the discovery of one new plant
+all bounds seem to be infinitely removed." He notes, too, the not
+uncommon experience, that a flower, once recognized, is likely soon to
+be re-encountered. Seeing something blue, or glaucous, in a swamp, he
+approaches it, and finds it to be the _Andromeda polifolia_, which had
+been shown him, only a few days before, in Emerson's collection; now he
+sees it in abundance. At times he adopts the method of sitting quietly
+and looking around him, on the principle that "as it is best to sit in a
+grove and let the birds come to you, so, as it were, even the flowers
+will come."
+
+Swamps were among Thoreau's favourite haunts: he thinks it would be a
+luxury to stand in one, up to his chin, for a whole summer's day,
+scenting the sweet-fern and bilberries. "That is a glorious swamp of
+Miles's," he remarks; "the more open parts, where the dwarf andromeda
+prevails. . . . These are the wildest and richest gardens that we have."
+The fields were less trustworthy, because of the annual vandalism of the
+mowing. "About these times," he writes in June, "some hundreds of men,
+with freshly sharpened scythes, make an irruption into my garden when in
+its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can; and I
+am restricted to the rough hedges and worn-out fields which had little
+to attract them."
+
+Among Thoreau's best-beloved flowers, if we may judge by certain
+passages of the _Journal_, was the large white bindweed (_convolvulus
+sepium_), or "morning-glory." "It always refreshes me to see it," he
+writes; "I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over
+my morning walks and thoughts." Not less worthily celebrated by him, in
+another mood, are the wild rose and the water-lily.
+
+     We now have roses on the land and lilies on the water--both land
+     and water have done their best--now, just after the longest day.
+     Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with
+     the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender
+     petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet
+     queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the
+     water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid
+     rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a
+     green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour
+     belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water.
+
+It was not Thoreau's practice to pluck many flowers; he preferred, as a
+rule, to leave them where they were; but he speaks of the fitness of
+having "in a vase of water on your table the wildflowers of the season
+which are just blossoming": thus in mid-June he brings home some
+rosebuds ready to expand, "and the next morning they open and fill my
+chamber with fragrance." At another time the grateful thought of the
+calamint's scent suffices him: "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my
+mind to remember its fragrance."
+
+It was characteristic of Thoreau that he loved to renew his outdoor
+pleasures in remembrance, by pondering over the beautiful things he had
+witnessed, whether through sight or sound or scent. His mountain
+excursions were not fully apprehended by him, until he had afterwards
+meditated on them. "It is after we get home," he says, "that we really
+go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
+mountain do?" So it was with his flowers: even in the long winter
+evenings they were still his companions and friends.
+
+    I have remembered, when the winter came,
+    High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    How, in the shimmering noon of summer past,
+    Some unrecorded beam slanted across
+    The upland pastures where the johnswort grew.
+
+On a January date we find him writing in his _Journal_: "Perhaps what
+most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we
+leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold
+is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." Thus, by memory,
+his winters were turned into summers, and his flower-seasons were
+continuous.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+FELONS AND OUTLAWS
+
+    The poisoning henbane, and the mandrake dread.
+
+    DRAYTON.
+
+
+THAT there are felonious as well as philanthropic flowers, plants that
+are actively malignant in their relation to mankind, has always been a
+popular belief. The upas-tree, for example, has given rise to many
+gruesome stories; and the mandrake, fabled to shriek when torn from the
+ground, has played a frequent part in poetry and legend; not to mention
+the host of noxious weeds, the "plants at whose names the verse feels
+loath," as Shelley has it:
+
+    And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,
+    And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank.
+
+The felons, however, of whom I would now speak are not the plants that
+seem merely foul and repulsive, such as the docks and nettles, the
+broom-rapes, toothworts, and similar ill-looking parasites, but rather
+the bold bad outlaws and highwaymen, the "gentlemen of the road," who,
+however deleterious to human welfare, have a sinister beauty and
+distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent
+among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself
+belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British
+flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better
+named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly
+described as "the deadly." So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three
+centuries ago exhorted his readers to "banish these pernicious plants
+out of your gardens, and all places near to your houses, where children
+do resort;" and modern writers tell us that the plant is "fortunately"
+of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live
+long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some
+abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and, _pace_
+Gerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a
+strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the
+large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black
+"wolf-cherries."[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: Rabbits eat the leaves without harm to themselves, but
+their flesh becomes injurious to human beings. A case of poisoning of
+this sort was lately reported from Oxted.]
+
+Next to the dwale in the nightshade family must rank the henbane, a
+fallen angel among wildflowers; for its beauty is of the sickly and
+fetid kind, which at once attracts and repels. It is curious that in the
+lines from Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" the epithet "dank" should be
+given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the
+henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the
+stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch.
+Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late
+years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be "common in
+waste places," one may visit hundreds of waste places without a glimpse
+of it. In the _Flora of the Lake District_ (1885) Arnside is given as
+one of its localities; but I was told by a resident that he had only
+once seen it there, and then it had sprung up in his garden.
+
+It is in similar places that the thorn-apple, another cousin to the
+nightshade, is apt to make its un-invited appearance; less a felon,
+perhaps, than a sturdy rogue and vagabond among flowers of ill repute. A
+year or two ago, I was told by the holder of an allotment-garden that a
+great number of thorn-apples were springing up in his ground; and
+knowing my interest in flowers he sent me a small basketful of the young
+plants, which, rather to my neighbours' surprise, I set out in a row,
+like lettuces, in a corner of my back-yard. There they flourished well,
+and in due course made a fine show with their trumpet-shaped white
+flowers and the big thorny capsules whence the plant takes its name. It
+is not a bad-looking fellow, but awkward and hulking, and quite devoid
+of the sickly grace of the henbane or of the bodeful gloom of the
+dwale.
+
+Passing now to the handsome but acrid tribe of the _ranunculi_, and
+omitting the poisonous but interesting baneberry, of which I have
+already spoken, we come to two formidable plants, the hellebore and the
+monk's-hood, which have been famous from earliest times for their
+dangerous propensities. The green hellebore, though in Westmorland named
+"felon grass," is a less felonious-looking flower than its close kinsman
+the fetid hellebore, whose general appearance, owing to the crude pale
+green of its purple-tipped sepals, and the reluctance of its globe-like
+buds to expand themselves fully, is one of insalubrity and unripeness.
+But it is a plant of distinction, some two or three feet in height; and
+as it flowers before the winter is well past, it can hardly fail to
+arrest attention in the few places where it is to be found: in Arundel
+Park, in Sussex, it may be seen growing in close conjunction with the
+deadly nightshade--a noteworthy pair of desperadoes.
+
+The other malefactor of the ranunculus family is the aconite, or
+monk's-hood, a poisonous but very picturesque flower with deep blue
+blossoms, which takes its name from the hood-like appearance of the
+upper sepal. "It beareth," Gerarde tells us, "very fair and goodly blew
+floures in shape like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would
+thinke they were of some excellent vertue." A traitor, a masked bandit
+it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man,
+"unless it can find in him something else to kill," some disease, to
+wit; and thus it holds its place in the pharmacopoeia.
+
+The umbellifers include a number of outlaws such as the water-dropworts
+and cowbane; but among the dangerous members of the tribe there is only
+one that attains to real greatness, and that of course is the hemlock, a
+poisoner of old-established renown, as witness the death of Socrates.
+"Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" is one of the ingredients in the
+witches' cauldron in _Macbeth_, and the hemlock's name has always been
+one to conjure with, which may account for the fact that several
+kindred, but less eminent plants unlawfully aspire to it, and are
+erroneously thus classed. But the true hemlock is unmistakable: the
+stout bloodspotted stem distinguishes it from the lesser crew; its
+finely cut fernlike leaves are exceedingly beautiful; and it is of
+stately habit--I have seen it growing to the height of nine feet, or
+more, in places where the surrounding brushwood had to be overtopped.
+
+Let us give their due, then, to these outlaws of whom I have spoken,
+these Robin Hoods of the floral world. Bandits and highwaymen they may
+be; but after all, our woods and waysides would be much duller if they
+were banished.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+SOME MARSH-DWELLERS
+
+    Here are cool mosses deep.
+
+    TENNYSON.
+
+
+WHAT Thoreau wrote of his Massachusetts swamps is hardly less true of
+ours; a marsh is everywhere a great allurement for botanists. By a road
+which crosses a certain Sussex Common there is a church, and close
+behind the church a narrow swampy piece of ground known as "the great
+bog," which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet
+whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words: "_My_ temple is
+the swamp." For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the
+Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be
+hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being
+the home not only of a number of characteristic plants--lesser
+skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and
+the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw--but of one of our rarest and most
+beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old
+herbalists as the "marsh-felwort."
+
+The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at
+once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large
+funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green
+bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining
+banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the
+locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who
+cross the Common. On the afternoon in early September when I first found
+the place, a number of children were blackberrying there, and I dreaded
+every moment to see them turn aside to pick a bunch of the gentians,
+which doubtless would soon have been thrown aside to wither, as is the
+fate of so many spring flowers; but though the blue petals were
+conspicuous in the heather they were left entirely unmolested. For this
+merciful abstinence there were probably two reasons: one that the
+flower-picking habit is exhausted before the autumn; the other that the
+gentians, however beautiful, are not among the recognized
+favourites--daffodils, primroses, violets, forget-me-nots, and the
+like--that by long custom have taken hold of the imagination of
+childhood. Had it been otherwise, this rare little annual could hardly
+have survived so long.
+
+In botanical usage there seems to be no difference between the terms
+"marsh" and "bog," nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained
+distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belonging to a
+somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of
+what might be called "Anne-prattle," had so real a love of her subject
+that her best book, _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, affords very agreeable
+reading. "The distinction between a bog and a marsh," she says, "is
+simply that the latter is more wet, and that the foot sinks in; while on
+a bog the soft soil, though it yields to the pressure of the foot, rises
+again." The definition itself seems hardly to be based on _terra firma_;
+but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst,
+an adventurous botanist "is often rewarded for the temporary chill by
+the beauty of the plant which he has gathered." That is a consolation
+which I have not seldom enjoyed.
+
+But a pleasanter name, in my opinion, than either "marsh" or "bog," is
+one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties
+generally, viz. "a moss." It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an
+occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near
+Penrith, "the foot sank in," and a good deal more than the foot; but the
+acquaintance then made for the first time with that giant of the
+_ranunculus_ order, the great spearwort, was sufficient recompense, for
+who would complain of a wetting when he met with a buttercup four feet
+in stature?
+
+It so happened, however, that the plant in whose quest I had ventured on
+the precarious surface of the Newton Regny moss--the great
+bladderwort--was not to be found on that occasion, though it is
+reported to make a fine show there in August; possibly, in an early
+season, it had already finished its flowering, and had sunk, after the
+inconsiderate manner of its tribe, to the bottom of the pools. Nor did I
+see its rarer sister, the lesser bladderwort; with whom indeed I have
+only once had the pleasure of meeting, and that was in a rather awkward
+place, a deep pond lying close below a railway-bank, and overlooked by
+the windows of the passing trains, so that I not only had to swim for a
+flower, but to consult a time-table before swimming, in order to avoid
+having a "gallery" at the moment when seclusion was desired.
+
+Our North-country "mosses" are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by
+virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken
+succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of
+the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of
+Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is
+very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its
+strange purple blossoms as "dingy"--I allude to that wilder relative of
+the wild strawberry, the marsh-cinquefoil, which, though rather local,
+is in habit decidedly gregarious. For several years it had eluded me in
+a Carnarvonshire valley; until one day, wandering by the riverside, I
+came upon a swampy expanse where it was growing in hundreds, remarkable
+both for the deep rusty hue of its petals, and for the large
+strawberry-like fruit that was just beginning to form.
+
+Apart from the more extensive "mosses," the lower slopes of the
+mountains, both in Cumberland and Wales, are often rich in flowers
+unsuspected by the wayfarer, who, keeping to some upland track, sees
+nothing on either side but bare peaty moors that appear to be entirely
+barren. And barren in many cases they are. You may wander for miles and
+not see a flower; then suddenly perhaps, on rounding a rock, you will
+find yourself in one of these natural gardens in the wilderness, where
+the ground is pink with red rattle growing so thickly as to hide the
+grass; or white with spotted orchis, handsomer and in greater abundance
+than is dreamed of in the south; or, a still more glorious sight, tinged
+over large spaces with the yellow of the bog-asphodel, a plant which is
+beautiful in its fruit as well as its flower, for when the blossoms are
+passed the dry wiry stems turn to deep orange. Sun-dews are everywhere;
+the quaint and affable butterwort is plastered over the wet rocks; and
+the marsh St. John's-wort, so unlike the rest of its family that the
+relationship is not always recognized, is frequent in the spongy pools.
+
+Here and there, a small patch of pink on the grey heath, will be seen
+the delicate bog-pimpernel, which might take rank as the fairest flower
+of the marsh, were it not that the diminutive ivy-leaved campanula is
+also trailing its fairy-like form through the wet grasses, among which
+it might wholly escape notice unless search were made for it. To realize
+the perfection of its beauty--the exquisite structure of its small green
+leaves, slender thread-like stems, and bells of palest blue--you must go
+down on your knees to examine it, however damp the ground; a fitting act
+of homage to one of the loveliest of Flora's children.
+
+Better cultivation, preceded by improved drainage, is ceaselessly
+encroaching on our marshlands and lessening the number of their flowers.
+The charming little cranberry, for instance, once so plentiful that it
+came to market in wagonloads from the fens of the eastern counties, is
+now far from common; and our cranberry-tarts have to be supplied from
+oversea. But much more ravishing than the red berries are the
+rose-coloured flowers, though they are known to scarcely one in a
+thousand of the persons familiar with the fruit. I always think with
+pleasure of the day when I first saw them, on the Whinlatter pass, near
+Keswick, their small wiry stems creeping on the surface of the swamp, a
+feast for an epicure's eye. It is under the open air, not under a
+pie-crust, that such dainties are appreciated as they deserve.
+
+These, then, being some of the many attractions offered by our "mosses,"
+is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a
+modern "moss-trooper," and ride out over the border in search for such
+imperishable spoil? His part, indeed, is a much wiser one than that of
+the old freebooters; for who would risk life in the forcible lifting of
+other persons' cattle, when at the slight expense to which Anne Pratt
+alluded--the temporary chill caused by the sinking of his foot in a
+marsh--he can enrich himself far more agreeably in the manner which I
+have described?
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A NORTHERN MOOR
+
+    Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
+    Thundering o'er Caldron and High Force.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+A FIRST glance at the bleak and inhospitable moorland of Upper Teesdale
+would not lead one to suppose that it is famous for its flora. No more
+desolate-looking upland could be imagined; the great wolds stretch away
+monotonously, broken only by a few scars that overhang the course of the
+stream, and devoid of the grandeur that is associated with mountain
+scenery. No houses are visible, except a few white homesteads that dot
+the slopes--their whiteness, it is said, being of service to the farmers
+when they return in late evening from some distant market and are faced
+with the difficulty of finding their own doors. Its wildness is the one
+charm of the place; in that it is unsurpassed.
+
+But this bare valley, botanically regarded, is a bit of the far North,
+interpolated between Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire, where the
+Teesdale basalt or "whinstone" affords an advanced station for many
+rare plants of the highland type as they trend southward; and there, for
+five or six miles, from the upper waterfall of Caldron Snout to that of
+High Force, the banks of the Tees, with the rough pastures, scars, and
+fells that form its border, hold many floral treasures.
+
+The first flower to attract attention on these wild lawns is that queen
+of violets, the mountain pansy (_viola lutea_), not uncommon on many
+midland and northern heaths, but nowhere else growing in such
+prodigality as here, or with such rich mingling of colours--orange
+yellow, creamy white, deep purple, and velvet black--till the eye of the
+traveller is sated with the gorgeous tints. To the violet tribe this
+pansy stands in somewhat the same relation as does the bird's-eye
+primrose to the _primulas_; it is a mountain cousin, at once hardier and
+more beautiful than its kinsfolk of wood and plain. Seeing it in such
+abundance, we can understand why Teesdale has been described as "the
+gardener's paradise;" but the expression is not a fitting one, for
+"gardener" suggests "trowel," and the nurseryman is the sort of Peri to
+whom the gates of this paradise ought to be for ever closed.
+
+But perhaps the first stroll which a visitor to Upper Teesdale is likely
+to take, is by the bank of the river just above High Force; and here the
+most conspicuous plant is a big cinquefoil, the _potentilla fruticosa_,
+a shrub about three feet in height, bearing large yellow flowers. Rare
+elsewhere, it is in exuberance beside the Tees; and I remember the
+amused surprise with which a dalesman regarded me, when he saw my
+interest in a weed that to him was so familiar and so cheap.
+
+But the smaller notabilities of the district have to be personally
+searched for; they do not obtrude themselves on the wayfarer's glance.
+On the Yorkshire side of the stream stands Cronkley Scar, a buttress of
+the high moor known as Mickle Fell; and here, in the wet gullies, may be
+found such choice northern plants as the Alpine meadow-rue; the Scottish
+asphodel (_Tofieldia_), a small relative of the common bog-asphodel; and
+the curious viviparous bistort, another highland immigrant, bearing a
+spike of dull white flowers and small bulbs below.
+
+The fell above the scar is a desolate tract, frequented by golden plover
+and other moorland birds. On one occasion when I ascended it I was
+overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain, which compelled me to
+leave the further heights of Mickle Fell unexplored, and to retreat to
+the less exposed pastures of Widdibank on the opposite side of the Tees,
+here a broad but shallow mountain stream, which in dry weather can be
+forded without difficulty but becomes a roaring torrent after heavy
+rains. In the course of two short visits, one in mid-July, the other in
+the spring of the following year, I twice had the opportunity of seeing
+the river in either mood, first in unruffled tranquillity, then in
+furious spate.
+
+It is in May or early June that Teesdale is at the height of its glory;
+for the plant which lends it a special renown is the spring gentian,
+perhaps the brightest jewel among all British flowers, small, but a true
+Alpine, and of that intense blue which signalizes the gentian race. Here
+this noble flower grows in plenty, not in wide profusion like the
+pansies, but in large and thriving colonies, not confined to one side of
+the stream. It was on the Durham bank that I first saw it--one of those
+rare scenes that a flower-lover cannot forget, for the blue gentians
+were intermingled with pink bird's-eye primroses, only less lovely than
+themselves, and close by were a few spikes of the Alpine bartsia, whose
+sombre purple was in marked contrast with the brilliant hues of its
+companions.
+
+Of this rare bartsia I had plucked a single flower on my previous visit
+to the same spot, but then in somewhat hurried circumstances. I had been
+crossing the wide pastures near Widdibank farm in company with a friend,
+who, having heard rumours of the temper of Teesdale bulls, had unwisely
+allowed his thoughts to be somewhat distracted from the pansies. We were
+in the middle of a field of vast extent, when I heard my companion
+asking anxiously: "Is _that_ one?" It certainly _was_ one; not a pansy,
+but a bull; and he was advancing towards us with very unfriendly noises
+and gestures. We therefore retired as quickly as we could, without
+seeming to run--he slowly following us--in the direction of the river;
+and there, under a high bank, over which we expected every moment the
+bulky head to reappear, I saw the Alpine bartsia, and stooped to pick
+one as we fled, my friend mildly deprecating even so slight a delay.
+
+Now, however, on my second visit, I was able to examine the bank at my
+leisure, and to have full enjoyment of as striking a group of flowers as
+could be seen on English soil--gentian, bird's-eye primrose, Alpine
+bartsia--and as if these were not sufficient, the mountain pansy running
+riot in the pasture just above.
+
+So far, I have spoken only of the plants which I myself saw; there are
+other and greater rarities in Teesdale which the casual visitor can
+hardly expect to encounter. The yellow marsh-saxifrage (_S. hirculus_)
+occurs in two or three places on the slopes of Mickle Fell; so, too, in
+limestone crevices does the mountain-avens (_dryas octopetala_), and the
+winter-green (_pyrola secunda_); while on Little Fell, which lies
+further to the south-west, towards Appleby, the scarce Alpine
+forget-me-not is reported to be plentiful. I was told by a botanist
+that, in crossing the moors from Teesdale to Westmorland, he once picked
+up what he took for a fine clump of the common star-saxifrage, and
+afterwards found to his surprise that it was the Alpine snow-saxifrage
+(_S. nivalis_), which during the past thirty years has become
+exceedingly rare both in the Lake District and in North Wales.
+
+The haunts of the rarer flowers are not likely to be discovered in a day
+or two, nor yet in a week or two: it is only to him who has gone many
+times over the ground that such secrets will disclose themselves; but
+even the passing rambler must be struck, as I was, by the number of
+noteworthy plants that Teesdale wears, so to speak, upon its sleeve. The
+globe-flower revels in the moist meadows; so, too, do the water-avens
+and the marsh-cinquefoil, nor is the butterfly orchis far to seek; and
+though the yellow marsh-saxifrage may remain hidden, there is no lack of
+the yellow saxifrage of the mountain (_saxifraga aizoides_), to console
+you, if it can, for the absence of its rarer cousin. The cross-leaved
+bedstraw (_galium boreale_), another North-country plant, luxuriates on
+low wet cliffs by the river.
+
+Last, but not least, in the later months of summer, is the mountain
+thistle (_carduus heterophyllus_), or the "melancholy thistle" as it is
+often called--a title which seems to have small relevance, unless all
+plants of a grave and dignified bearing are to be so named. Do men
+expect to gather figs of thistles, that they should demand the simple
+gaiety of the cowslip or the primrose from such a plant as this, whose
+rich purple flowers, spineless stem, and large parti-coloured
+leaves--deep green above, white below--mark it as one of the most
+handsome, as it is certainly the most gracious and benevolent of its
+tribe?
+
+As I walked down the valley, on a wet morning in July, to take train at
+Middleton, twenty-four hours of rain had turned the river through which
+I had easily waded on the previous day, into a flood that was terrifying
+both in aspect and sound. It was no time for flower-hunting; but even
+then the wonders of the place were not exhausted; for along the
+hedgerows I saw in plenty that same stately thistle, which in most
+districts where it occurs is viewed with some interest and curiosity,
+but in Teesdale is a roadside weed--subject, I was shocked to observe,
+to the insolence of the passers-by, who, knowing not what they do,
+maltreat it as if it were some vulgar pest of the fields, a thing to be
+hacked at and trampled on. Even so, I saw in it a discrowned king, who
+"nothing common did or mean."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+APRIL IN SNOWDONIA
+
+     It is Easter Sunday . . . the hills are high, and stretch away to
+     heaven.--DE QUINCEY.
+
+
+SO wrote De Quincey in one of his finest dream-fugues. There seems, in
+truth, to be a certain fitness in the turning of men's thoughts at the
+spring season to the heights of the mountains, where, as nowhere else,
+the cares and ailments of the winter time are forgotten; and it is a
+noticeable fact that these upland districts are now as thronged with
+visitors during Easter week as in August itself. As I write, I am
+sitting by a wood fire under a high rock in a sheltered nook at Capel
+Curig, with a biting north-easter blowing overhead and an occasional
+snow-squall whitening the hillsides around, while the upper ridges are
+covered in places with great fields and spaces of snow, which at times
+loom dim and ghostly through the haze, and then gleam out gloriously in
+the interludes of sunshine. The scenery at the top of Snowdon, the
+Glyders, Carnedd Llewelyn, and the other giants of the district has been
+quite Alpine in character. The wind has drifted the snow in great
+pillowy masses among the rocks, or piled it in long cornices along the
+edges, and on several days when the air was at its keenest, the snow
+fields have been crisp and firm, and have afforded excellent footing as
+a change from the rough "screes" and crags; at other times, when the sun
+has shone out warmly, the snow has been soft and treacherous, and the
+spectacle has often been seen of the too trustful tourist struggling
+waistdeep.
+
+Mid-April in Snowdonia, when March has been cold and wet, shows scarcely
+an advance from midwinter as far as the blossoming of flowers is
+concerned. Down by the coast the land is gay with gorse and primroses,
+but in the bleak upland dales that radiate from the great mountains
+hardly a bloom is to be seen; nor do the river banks and marshy pastures
+as yet show so much as a kingcup, a spearwort, or a celandine. The
+visitors have come in their multitudes to walk, to climb, to cycle, to
+motor, to take photographs, or to take fish, as the case may be; but if
+one of them were to confess that he had come to look for flowers he
+would indeed surprise the natives--still more if he were to point to the
+upper ramparts of the mountains, among the rocks and snows and clouds,
+as the place of his design.
+
+Yet it is there that we must climb, if we would see the pride of the
+purple saxifrage, the earliest of our mountain flowers, blest by
+botanists with the cumbrous name of _saxifraga oppositifolia_, and
+often grown by gardeners, who know it as a Swiss immigrant, but not as a
+British native. A true Alpine, it is not found in this country much
+below 2,000 feet, and in Switzerland its range is far higher, for it is
+a neighbour and a lover of the snows. Small and slight as it may seem,
+when compared with some of its more splendid brethren of the Alps, it
+has the distinction of a high-bred race, the character of the genuine
+mountaineer. It is a wearer of the purple, in deed as well as in name.
+
+But our approach to the home of the saxifrage is not to be accomplished
+without toil, in weather which is a succession of boisterous squalls.
+Under such a gale we have literally to push our way in a five-mile walk
+to the foot of the hills, and as we climb higher and higher up the
+slopes we have a ceaselesstussle with the strong, invisible foe who
+buffets us from every side in turn, while he hisses against the sharp
+edges of the crags, or growls with dull subterranean noises under the
+piles of fallen rocks. As for the streams, they are blown visibly out of
+their steep channels and carried in light spray across the hillside,
+while sheets of water are lifted from the surface of the lake. Not till
+we reach the base of the great escarpment which forms the north-east
+wall of the mountain are we able to draw breath in peace; for there,
+under the topmost precipices, flecked with patches of snow, is a strange
+and blissful calm. But now, just when our search begins, the mists,
+which have long been circling overhead, creep down and fill the upland
+hollow where we stand, cutting off our view not only of the valley below
+but of the range of cliffs above, and confining us in a sequestered
+cloudland of our own. Still climbing along a line of snowdrifts which
+follows a ridge of rocks, and which serves at once as a convenient route
+for an ascent and a safe guide for a return, we scan the likely-looking
+corners and crevices for the object of our pilgrimage. At first in vain;
+and then fears begin to assail us that we may be doomed to
+disappointment. Can we have come too early, even for so early a plant,
+in a backward season? Or have some wandering tourists or roving knights
+of the trowel (for such there are) robbed the mountain-side of its
+gem--for this saxifrage, owing to the brightness of its petals on the
+grey and barren slopes, is so conspicuous as to be at the mercy of the
+passer-by.
+
+But even as we stand in doubt there is a gleam of purple through the
+mist, and yonder, on a boss of rock, is a cluster of the rubies we have
+come not to steal but to admire. What strikes one about the purple
+saxifrage, when seen at close quarters, its many bright flowerets
+peering out from a cushion of moss, is the largeness of the blossoms in
+proportion to the shortness of the stems; a precocious, wide-browed
+little plant, it looks as if the cares of existence at these wintry
+altitudes had given it a somewhat thoughtful cast. At a distance it
+makes a splash of colour on the rocks, and from the high cliffs above
+it hangs out, here and there, in tufts that are fortunately beyond
+reach.[17]
+
+[Footnote 17: For a charming description of the purple saxifrage, see
+_Holidays in High Lands_, by Hugh Macmillan (1869).]
+
+Having paid our homage to the flower, we leave it on its lofty throne
+among the clouds, and descend by snow-slopes and scree-slides to the
+windy, blossomless valley beneath. A month hence, when the season of the
+Welsh poppy, the globe-flower, and the butterwort is beginning, the
+reign of the purple saxifrage will be at an end. To be appreciated as it
+deserves, it must be seen not as a poor captive of cultivation, but in
+its free, wild environment, among the remotest fastnesses of the
+mountains.
+
+The wild animal life on the hills, so noteworthy in the later spring,
+seems as yet to have hardly awakened. We saw a white hare one afternoon
+on Carnedd Llewelyn, but that was the only beast of the mountains that
+crossed our path during eight days' climbing, nor were the birds so
+numerous as might have been expected. The croak of the raven was heard
+at times, in his high breeding-places, and on another occasion there was
+a triple conflict in the air between a raven, a buzzard, and a hawk. On
+the lower moorlands the curlew was beginning to arrive from his winter
+haunts by the seashore, and small flocks of gulls, driven inland by the
+winds, were hovering over the waters of Llyn Ogwen, where we saw several
+of them mobbing a solitary heron, who seemed much embarrassed by their
+onslaught, until he succeeded in getting his great wings into motion.
+
+But if bird-life is still somewhat dormant in these lofty regions, there
+have been plenty of human migrants on the wing. From our high
+watch-tower, we saw daily, far below us, the long line of
+motorists--those terrestrial birds of prey--speeding along the white
+roads, and flying past a hundred entrancing spots, as if their object
+were to see as little as possible of what they presumably came to see.
+Flocks of cyclists, too, were visible here and there, avoiding the cars
+as best they could, and drinking not so much "the wind of their own
+speed," in the poet's words, as the swirl and dust of the motors; while
+on the bypaths and open hillsides swarmed the happier foot-travellers,
+pilgrims in some cases from long distances over the mountains, or
+skilled climbers with ropes coiled over their shoulders and faces set
+sternly towards some beetling crag or black gully in the escarpment
+above. In one respect only are they all alike--that they are birds of
+passage and are here only for the holiday. Soon they will be gone, and
+then the ancient silence will settle down once more upon the hills, and
+buzzard and raven will be undisturbed, until July and August bring the
+great summer incursion.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+FLOWER-GAZING _IN EXCELSIS_
+
+    I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
+    What wealth the show to me had brought.
+
+    WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+THERE is no more inspiring pastime than flower-gazing under the high
+crags of Snowdon. The love of flowers reveals a new and delightful
+aspect of the mountain life, and leads its votaries into steeps and
+wilds which, as they lie aloof from the usual ways of the climber, might
+otherwise escape notice. It must be owned that our Cumbrian and Cambrian
+hills are not rich in flowers as Switzerland is rich; one cannot here
+step out on the mountain-side and see great sheets of colour, as on some
+Alpine slope; and not only must we search for our treasures, but we must
+know _where_ to search. They do not grow everywhere; much depends on the
+nature of the soil, much on the altitude, much on the configuration of
+the hills. There are great barren tracts which bear little but heather
+and bilberry; but there are rarer beds of volcanic ash and calcareous
+rock which are a joy to the heart of the flower-lover.[18]
+
+[Footnote 18: See _The Flora of Carnarvonshire_, by John E. Griffith,
+and _A Flora of the English Lake District_, by J. G. Baker, two books
+which are of great value in showing the localities of mountain plants.]
+
+Again, one is apt to think that on those heights, where the winter is
+long and severe, it is the southern flanks that must be the haunt of the
+flowers; in reality, it is the north-east side that is the more
+favoured, owing to the fact that the hills, in both districts, for the
+most part rise gently from the south or the south-west, in gradual
+slopes that are usually dry and wind-swept, while northward and eastward
+they fall away steeply in broken and water-worn escarpments. It is here,
+among the wet ledges and rock-faces, constantly sprayed from the high
+cliffs above, where springs have their sources, that the right
+conditions of shade and moisture are attained; and here only can the
+Alpines be found in any abundance. The precipices of Cwm Idwal and Cwm
+Glas, in Wales, and in the Lake District the east face of Helvellyn, may
+stand as examples of such rock-gardens.
+
+The course of a climber is usually along the top of the ridge, that of
+the botanist at its base; his paradise is that less frequented region
+which may be called the undercliff, where the "screes" begin to break
+away from the overhanging precipice, and where, in the angle thus
+formed, there is often a little track which winds along the hillside,
+sometimes rising, sometimes falling, but always with the cliff above
+and the scree-slope below. Following this natural guidance he may
+scramble around the base of the rocks, or along their transverse ledges,
+and feast his eyes on the many mountain flowers that are within sight,
+if not within reach.
+
+It is a fine sport, this flower-gazing; not only because all the plants
+are beautiful and many of them rare, but because it demands a certain
+skill to balance oneself on a steep declivity, while looking upward,
+through binoculars, at some attractive clump of purple saxifrage, or
+moss-campion, or thrift, or rose-root, or globe-flower, as the case may
+be.[19] To the veteran rambler especially, this flower-cult is
+congenial; for it supplies--I will not say an excuse for not going to
+the top, but a less severe and exacting diversion, which still takes him
+into the inmost solitudes of the mountain, and keeps him in unfailing
+touch with its character and genius.
+
+[Footnote 19: In Parkinson's _Theatrum Botanicum_ (1640) it is remarked
+of rose-root that it grows "oftentimes in the ruggiest places, and most
+dangerous of them, scarce accessible, and so steepe that they may soon
+tumble downe that doe not very warily looke to their footing."]
+
+I have spoken of Snowdonia in the spring; let us view it now in the
+fulness of June or July, when its flora is at its richest. It is not
+till you have climbed to a height of about two thousand feet that the
+true joys of the mountains begin. At first, perhaps, as you follow the
+course of the stream you will see nothing more than a bunch of white
+scurvy-grass or a spray of golden-rod; but when you reach the region
+where the thin cascade comes sliding down over the moist rocks, and the
+topmost cliffs seem to impend, then you will have your reward, for you
+have entered into the kingdom of the Alpines.
+
+Suppose, for example, that you stand at the foot of the narrow ridge of
+Crib-y-Ddysgl, a great precipice which overhangs the upper chambers of
+Cwm Glas on the northern side of Snowdon, with an escarpment formed of
+huge slabs of rock intersected by wet gullies, narrow niches, and
+transverse terraces of grass. Looking up, to where the Crib towers
+above, you will see a goodly array of plants. Thrift is there, in large
+clumps as handsome as on any sea-cliffs; rose-root, the big
+mountain-stonecrop; cushions of moss-campion, which bears the local name
+of "Snowdon pink"; lady's-mantle, intermixed with the reddening leaves
+of mountain-sorrel; Welsh poppy, not so common a flower in Wales as its
+name would suggest; and at least three kinds of beautiful white
+blossoms--the starry saxifrage, the mossy saxifrage, and the shapely
+little sandwort (_arenaria verna_), as fair as the saxifrages
+themselves, and what higher praise could be given? The flower-lover can
+scarcely hope for greater delight than that which the starry saxifrage
+will yield him. It has been well said that "one who has not seen it
+growing, say, in some rift of the rock exposed by the wearing of the
+mountain torrent, cannot imagine how lovely it is, or how fitly it is
+named. White and starry, and saxifrage--how charming must that which has
+three such names be!"[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: _Wild Flowers of Scotland_, by J. H. Crawford.]
+
+Another lofty rock-face, similar in its flora to that of Snowdon, is the
+precipice at the head of Cwm Idwal, near the point where it is broken by
+the famous chasm of the Devil's Kitchen. Hereabouts is the chief station
+of the _Lloydia_, or spiderwort, a rather rare and pretty Alpine, a
+delicate lily of the high rocks, bearing solitary white flowers veined
+with red, and a few exceedingly narrow leaves that resemble the legs of
+a spider. Unlike most mountain plants, it has a considerable local
+reputation; and during its short flowering season in June one may
+observe small parties of enthusiasts from Bangor or Carnarvon,
+diligently scanning the black cliffs above Llyn Idwal, in the hope of
+spying it. The place where I first saw the _Lloydia_ in blossom was Cwm
+Glas; but I had previously noticed its long thin leaves in two or three
+places around the Devil's Kitchen.
+
+The haunts of the Alpine meadow-rue (_thalictrum alpinum_) are similar
+to those of the spiderwort; and a most elegant little plant it is, its
+gracefully drooping terminal cluster of small yellowish flowers being
+borne on a simple naked stem, whereas its less aristocratic relative,
+the smaller meadow-rue (_t. collinum_), which is much commoner on these
+rocks, is bushier and more branched. I had many disappointments, before
+I rightly apprehended the true Alpine species; once distinguished, it
+cannot again be mistaken.
+
+It was to a chance meeting in Ogwen Cottage, at the foot of Cwm Idwal,
+with Dr. Lloyd Williams, a skilled botanist who had brought a party of
+friends to visit the home of the _Lloydia_, that I owed my introduction
+to another very beautiful inhabitant of those heights, the white
+mountain-avens, known to rock-gardeners as _dryas octopetala_. Happy is
+the flower-gazer who has looked on the galaxy, the "milky way," of those
+fair mountain nymphs--for the plant is in truth an oread rather than a
+dryad--where they shed their lustre from certain favoured ledges in a
+spot which it is safer to leave unspecified. I must have passed close to
+the place many scores of times, in the forty or more years during which
+I had known the mountain; yet never till then did I become aware of the
+treasure that was enshrined in it!
+
+But of all the glories of Cwm Idwal--rarities apart--the greatest, when
+the summer is at its prime, is the array of globe-flowers. This splendid
+buttercup usually haunts the banks of mountain streams, or the sides of
+damp woods, in the West country and the North; its range is given in the
+_Flora of the Lake District_ as not rising above nine hundred feet; but
+in Snowdonia, not content to dwell with its cousins the kingcups and
+spearworts in the upland valleys, it aspires to a far more romantic
+station, and is seen blooming in profusion at twice and almost three
+times that height on the most precipitous rock-ledges.[21] One may gaze
+by the hour, enraptured, and never weary of the sight.
+
+[Footnote 21: In the Cairngorm mountains, the globe-flower ascends to a
+height of 3,000 feet (see Mr. Seton Gordon's _Wanderings of a
+Naturalist_); in the Alps to 8,000.]
+
+I have by no means exhausted the list of notable Snowdonian flowers that
+are native in the two localities of which I have spoken, or in a few
+other spots that are similarly favoured by geological conditions: the
+sea-plantain, the mountain-cudweed, the stone-bramble, the queer little
+whitlow-grass with twisted pods (_draba incana_), its still rarer
+congener the Alpine rock-cress, and the _Saussurea_, or Alpine
+saw-wort--all these, and more, are to be found there by the pilgrim who
+devotedly searches the scriptures of the hills. But of the _Saussurea_
+some mention will have to be made in the next chapter; for it is now
+time to turn from Cambria to Cumbria, from the "cwms" and "cribs" of
+Snowdon to the "coves" and "edges" of Helvellyn.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+COVES OF HELVELLYN
+
+    I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.
+
+    SCOTT.
+
+
+SO far I have spoken more of the Welsh mountain flowers than of those
+belonging to Lakeland; but the difference between the two districts, in
+regard to their respective floras, is not very great, and with a few
+exceptions the plants that are native on the one range may be looked for
+on the other. The _Lloydia_ is found in Snowdonia only; and Wales can
+boast, not a monopoly, but a greater plenty of the moss-campion and the
+purple saxifrage. On the other hand, the Alpine lady's-mantle and the
+yellow mountain-saxifrage, both abundant in Cumberland, are absent from
+Carnarvonshire; and this is somewhat of a loss, for the common
+lady's-mantle, charming though it is, lacks the beauty of the Alpine,
+and the yellow saxifrages, as they hang from the rocks like a phalanx of
+tiny golden shields--each with bright petals and pale green sepals
+radiating from a central boss--are among the greatest ornaments of the
+fells.
+
+Again, the lovely little bird's-eye primrose is a North-country plant
+which is not found in Wales; against which may be set, perhaps, that gem
+of the damp mosses on certain Welsh streamsides, the ivy-leaved
+bell-flower. More characteristic of Lakeland than of Snowdonia, though
+not peculiar to it, are those two very beautiful flowers, the one a
+child of the swamp, the other of the high pastures, the grass of
+Parnassus, and the mountain-pansy; and to conclude the list, the
+snow-saxifrage and the mountain-avens are about equally rare in both
+countries--the avens, indeed, is confined to one or two stations, where
+fortunately it is little known.
+
+Helvellyn, as a mountain, is very inferior to Snowdon, nor indeed can it
+compete in grandeur with its own Cumbrian neighbours, the Great Gable
+and Scafell; but among visitors to the Lakes it has nevertheless an
+enduring reputation, largely due to the poems in which Scott and
+Wordsworth have sung its praises. Accordingly, during the tourist
+season, the anxious question: "Is that Helvellyn?" may often be
+overheard; and on a fine day all sorts of incongruous persons may be
+seen making their way up the weary slopes that lead from Grasmere to its
+crest. I once observed a gentleman in a top-hat toiling upward in the
+queue; on another occasion I witnessed at the summit a violent quarrel
+between a married couple, the point of dispute (on which they appealed
+to me) being whether their little dog was, or was not, in danger of
+being blown over the cliffs. As the west wind was certainly very strong,
+and Helvellyn had already been associated with the story of a dog's
+fidelity, I ventured to advise a retreat.
+
+On the east side, however, where its "dark brow" overlooks the Red Tarn,
+and throws out two great lateral ridges--on the right, in De Quincey's
+words, "the awful curtain of rock called Striding Edge," and Swirrel
+Edge on the left--Helvellyn is a very fine mountain, and what is more to
+the present purpose, is botanically the most interesting of all the
+Lakeland fells. From Grisedale Tarn to Keppelcove, a distance of full
+three miles, that great escarpment, with the several "coves" that nestle
+beneath it, is the home of many rare Alpine flowers, corresponding in
+that respect with the Welsh rock-faces of Idwal and Cwm Glas; and though
+it does not offer so conspicuous a display, or such keen inducements to
+flower-gazing, a search along its narrow ledges, and under the impending
+crags, home of the hill fox, will seldom disappoint the adventurer.
+
+Some years ago I spent a week of July, in two successive seasons, at
+Patterdale, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the
+mountain flowers, but on both occasions the weather was very stormy and
+made it difficult to be on the fells. At first I searched chiefly under
+Striding Edge and the steep front of Helvellyn, among the rocks that
+lie behind the Red Tarn, and in similar places above Keppelcove Tarn in
+the adjoining valley, hoping with good luck to light on the
+snow-saxifrage. In this I was unsuccessful; but I twice found a plant I
+had not hitherto met with--in appearance a small spineless thistle, with
+a cluster of light-purple scented flowers--which proved to be the Alpine
+saw-wort, or _Saussurea_, and which in later years I saw again on
+Snowdon. A blossom which I picked and kept for several months was so
+little affected by its separation from the parent stem that it continued
+its vital processes in a vase, and passed from flowering to seeding
+without interruption. Like the orpine, it was a veritable "live-long,"
+or as the politicians say, "die-hard."
+
+At Patterdale I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr.
+Robert Nixon, a resident who has had a long and intimate knowledge of
+the local flora; and he very kindly devoted a day to showing me some of
+his flower-haunts on Helvellyn. In the course of this expedition, one of
+the pleasantest in my memory, a number of interesting plants were noted
+by us: among them the mountain-pansy; the cross-leaved bedstraw; the
+vernal sandwort; the Alpine meadow-rue; the moss-campion; the purple
+saxifrage, now past flowering; the mountain willow-herb (_epilobium
+alsinifolium_), not the true Alpine willow-herb, but a native of similar
+places among the higher rills; and the _salix herbacea_, or "least
+willow," the smallest of British trees, which when growing on the bare
+hill-tops is not more than two inches in height, though in the clefts of
+rock at the edge of the main escarpment we found it of much larger size.
+
+The moss-campion (_silene acaulis_) is especially associated with the
+locality of which I am speaking--the neighbourhood of Grisedale
+Tarn--and is mentioned in the "Elegiac Verses," composed by Wordsworth
+"near the mountain track that leads from Grasmere through Grisedale":
+
+    There cleaving to the ground, it lies,
+    With multitude of purple eyes,
+    Spangling a cushion green like moss.
+
+To this the poet added in a note: "This most beautiful plant is scarce
+in England. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was
+singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches in
+diameter. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in
+both of which I have since sought for it in vain." The other place may
+have been the hill above Rydal Mount; for a contributor to the _Flora of
+the Lake District_ states that it was there shown to him by Wordsworth.
+The poet's knowledge of the higher mountains, and of the mountain flora,
+was not great. The moss-campion though local, is much less rare than he
+supposed, and its "cushions" grow to a far larger bulk than that of the
+one described by him. In his _Holidays on High Lands_ (1869), Hugh
+Macmillan, paying tribute to the beauty of this flower, remarks that "a
+sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmorland mountains measured
+five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour." I have seen it
+approaching that size in Wales.
+
+Another plant which I was anxious to see was the Alpine _cerastium_
+(mouse-ear chickweed), said to grow "sparingly" on the crags of Striding
+Edge and in a few other places. I failed to find it; but when Mr. Nixon
+had pointed out to me, in a photograph of the Edge, a particular crag on
+which he had noticed the flower in a previous summer, I determined to
+renew the search. This the weather prevented; but in the following year,
+happening to be in Borrowdale in June, I walked from Keswick to the top
+of Helvellyn, and thence descended to Striding Edge, where, on the very
+rock indicated by Mr. Nixon, I found the object of my journey--not yet
+in flower, for I was somewhat ahead of its season, but authenticated as
+_cerastium alpinum_ by the small oval leaves covered with dense white
+down. I have several times seen, high up on Carnedd Llewelyn, a form of
+_cerastium_ with larger flowers than the common kind; this I think must
+have been what is called _c. alpestre_ in the _Flora of Carnarvonshire_;
+but the true _alpinum_, though frequent in the Scottish highlands, is
+decidedly rare in Wales.
+
+Even when the summer is far spent, there is hope for the flower-lover
+among these mountains, especially if he penetrate into one of those
+deep fissures--more characteristic of the Scafell range than of
+Helvellyn--known locally as "gills": I have in mind the upper portion of
+Grain's Gill, near the summit of the Sty Head Pass, where, on an autumn
+day, one may still see, on either bank of the chasm, a goodly array of
+flowers. Most prevalent, perhaps, are the satiny leaves of the Alpine
+lady's-mantle, which is extraordinarily abundant in this part of the
+Lake District, and forms a thick green carpet on many of the slopes.
+Against this background stand out conspicuously tall spires of
+golden-rod, rich cushions of wild thyme, and clumps of white
+sea-campion, a shore plant which, like thrift, sea-plantain, and
+scurvy-grass, seems almost equally at home on the heights. There, too,
+are the mountain-sorrel, and rose-root; butterworts, with leaves now
+faded to a sickly yellow; tufts of harebell, northern bedstraw and
+hawkweed; stout stalks of angelica; and, best of all, festoons of yellow
+saxifrages, beautiful even in their decay.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+GREAT DAYS
+
+    I hearing get, who had but ears,
+      And sight, who had but eyes before;
+    I moments live, who lived but years.
+
+    THOREAU.
+
+
+IN flower-seeking, as in other sports and sciences, the unexpected is
+always happening; there are rich days and poor days, surprises and
+disappointments; the plant which we hailed as a rarity may prove on
+examination to be but a gay deceiver; and contrariwise, when we think we
+have come home empty-handed, it may turn out that the vasculum contains
+some unrecognized treasure; as when, after what seemed to be a barren
+day on Helvellyn, I found that I had brought back with me the Alpine
+saw-wort.
+
+That in the study of flowers, as in all natural history, we should be
+more attracted by the rare than by the common is inevitable; it is a
+tendency that cannot be escaped or denied, but it may at least be kept
+within bounds, so that familiarity shall not breed the proverbial
+contempt, nor rarity a vulgar and excessive admiration.[22] The quest
+for the rare, provided that it does not make us forget that the common
+is often no less beautiful, or lead to that selfish acquisitiveness
+which is the bane of "collecting," is a foible harmless in itself and
+even in some cases useful, as inciting us to further activities.
+
+[Footnote 22: "This [herb] was choice, because of prime use in medicine;
+and that, more choice, for yielding a rare flavour to pottage; and a
+third choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme
+scarcity."--Scott's _Quentin Durward_.]
+
+The sulphur-wort, or "sea hog's-fennel," for instance, is not especially
+attractive--a big coarse plant, five feet in stature, with a solid stem,
+uncouth masses of grass-like leaves, and large umbels of yellow
+flowers--yet I have a gratifying recollection of a visit which I once
+paid to its haunts on the Essex salt marshes near Hamford Water. Again,
+the twisted-podded whitlow-grass is a rather shabby-looking little
+crucifer; but the day when I found it under the crags of Snowdon in Cwm
+Glas stands out distinguished and unforgotten. It is natural that we
+should observe more closely what there are fewer opportunities of
+observing.
+
+Let me speak first of the barren days. An old friend of mine who is of
+an optimistic temperament once assured me for my comfort, that the
+flower-seeker must not feel discouraged if he fail in his pursuit; since
+it is not from mere success, but from the effort itself, that benefit is
+derived. The text should run, not "Seek, and ye shall find," but,
+"Seek, and ye shall not _need_ to find." This may be a true doctrine,
+but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time,
+to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that
+there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long
+some of the "wanted" plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade
+discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of
+star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet
+set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or "clustered" saxifrage. In
+like manner among the innumerable flowers of the chalk fields, in the
+South, that elusive little annual, the mouse-tail, has hitherto remained
+undetected. So, too, with many other rarities: the list of the found may
+increase year by year, but that of the _un_found is never exhausted.
+
+It is well that it is so, and that satiety cannot chill the ardour of
+the flower-lover, but like Ulysses, "always roaming with a hungry
+heart," he has ever before him an object for his pursuit. "Wretched is
+he," says Rousseau, "who has nothing left to wish for." Nor is the
+reward a merely figurative one, such as that of the husbandmen in the
+fable, who, after digging the ground in search of a buried treasure,
+were otherwise recompensed; for the lean days are happily interspersed
+with the fat days, and to the botanist there is surely no joy on earth
+like that of discovering a flower that is new to him; it is a thrilling
+event which compensates tenfold for all the failures of the past.
+
+Very remarkable, too, is the freakishness of fortune, which often, while
+denying what you crave, will toss you something quite different and
+unlooked for: I remember how when searching vainly for the spider orchis
+at the foot of the Downs in Kent, I stumbled on an abundance of the
+"green man." Or perhaps, just at the moment when you are relinquishing
+the quest as hopeless, and have put it wholly from your mind, you will
+be startled to see the very flower that you sought.
+
+    Burningly it came on me all at once!
+
+     *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
+    After a life spent training for the sight!
+
+As Thoreau expressed it: "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one
+day you come full upon, all the family at dinner."
+
+But the great days! I have sometimes fancied that in those enterprises
+which are to mark the finding of a new flower, one has an inner
+anticipation, a sense of hopefulness and quiet satisfaction that on
+ordinary occasions is lacking. But this assurance must be an instinctive
+one; it is useless to affect a confidence that does not naturally arise;
+for though perseverance is essential, any presumptuous attempt to
+forestall a favourable issue will only lead to discomfiture. Then at
+last, when the goal is reached, comes the devotee's reward--the
+knowledge that is won only by attainment, the ecstasy, the moments that
+are better than years. In this, as in much else, the search for flowers
+is symbolic of the search for truth.
+
+Nothing, as they say, succeeds like success; and there are times, in
+this absorbing pursuit, when one piece of good fortune is linked closely
+with another. I shall not easily forget that day on Snowdon, when, after
+meeting for the first time with the Alpine meadow-rue, I almost
+immediately saw my first spiderwort some ten feet above me on the rocky
+cliff, and reached it by building a cairn of stones against the foot of
+the precipice to serve me as a ladder.
+
+Among the great days that have fallen to my lot while following the call
+of the wildflower, one other shall be mentioned--a fair September
+afternoon when I had wandered for miles about the wide pastures that
+border the Trent, in what seemed to be a fruitless search for the
+meadow-saffron. Already it was time to turn on my homeward journey, when
+I struck into a field from which hay had been carried in the summer; and
+there, scattered around in large clusters of a score or more together,
+some lilac, some white, all with a satiny translucence in the warm
+sunshine which gave them an extraordinary and fairy-like charm, were
+hundreds of the leafless "autumn crocuses," as they are called, though
+in fact the flower is more lovely and ethereal than any crocus of the
+garden. Not the day only, but the place itself was glorified by them;
+and now of all those spacious but rather desolate Nottinghamshire
+river-meadows, I remember only that one spot:
+
+    I crossed a moor, with a name of its own,
+      And a certain use in the world, no doubt;
+    Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone,
+      'Mid the blank miles round about.
+
+Nor are all the great days necessarily of that strenuous sort where
+success can only be achieved by effort; for there are some days which
+may also be called great, or at least memorable, when one attains by
+free gift of fortune to what might long have been searched for in vain.
+I refer to those happy occasions when a friend says: "Look here! I'd
+like to show you that field where the elecampane grows," or, it may be,
+the habitat (the only one in England) of the spring snowflake; or the
+place on Wansfell Pike where the mountain-twayblade lies hidden beneath
+the heather. Such things have befallen me now and then; nor am I likely
+to forget the day when Bertram Lloyd took me to the haunt of the
+creeping toadflax in Oxfordshire; or when, with Sydney Olivier for
+guide, I emerged from the aisles of Wychwood Forest on to some rough
+grassy ground, where in company with meadow crane's-bill, clustered
+bell-flower, and woolly-headed thistle, the blue _salvia pratensis_ was
+flourishing in glorious abundance.
+
+For recollection plays a large part in the flower-lover's enjoyment.
+Wordsworth and his daffodils are but a trite quotation; yet many hearts
+besides Wordsworth's have filled with pleasure at the memory of a brave
+array of flowers, or even of a single gallant plant seen in some wild
+locality by mountain, meadow, or shore. The great days were not born to
+be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE LAST ROSE
+
+    And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
+
+
+THE great days were not born to be forgotten. It is well that memory
+should come to the aid of the flower-lover; for none is more deserving
+of such comfort than he, keeping constant watch as he does over the
+transitoriness of the seasons, and having prescience of the summer's
+departure while summer is still at its height.
+
+    Sometimes a late autumnal thought
+    Has crossed my mind in green July.
+
+It is in the prime of the year that such intimations of mortality are
+keenest; when the "fall" itself has arrived, there is less of regret
+than of resignation. I do not know where the tranquil grief for parted
+loveliness is so tenderly expressed as in a fragmentary poem of
+Shelley's, "The Zucca," which, though little known by the majority of
+readers, contains some of the most poignant, most Shelleyan verses ever
+written. The poet relates how when the Italian summer was dead, and
+autumn was in turn expiring, he went forth in grief for the decay of
+that ideal beauty--"dim object of my soul's idolatry"--of which he,
+above all men, was the worshipper, and in this mood of sadness found the
+withered gourd which was the subject of his song.
+
+    And thus I went lamenting, when I saw
+      A plant upon the river's margin lie,
+    Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law.
+      And in despair had cast him down to die.
+
+There is a fitness in such imagery; for flowers seem to serve naturally
+as emblems of human emotions. Who has not felt the pathos of a faded
+blossom kept as a memorial of the past? Many years ago I was given a
+beautifully bound copy of Moxon's edition of _Shelley_; and when I
+noticed that opposite that loveliest of poems, "Epipsychidion," were a
+few pink petals interleaved, I was sure that their presence at such a
+page was not merely accidental; and it has since been a whim of mine
+that those tokens of some bygone incident in the life of a former owner
+of the book should not be displaced.
+
+There are vicissitudes in human lives with which flowers become
+associated in our thoughts. I recall a calm autumn day spent in company
+with a friend upon the Surrey Downs, when the marjoram and other
+fragrant flowers of the chalk were still as beautiful as in summer, but
+the sadness of a near departure from that familiar district lay heavy
+on my mind; and that day proved indeed to be the end of many happy
+years, for long afterwards, when I returned to those hills, all was
+changed for _me_, though Nature was kindly as before. Thus a date, not
+greatly heeded at the time, may be found to have marked one of life's
+turning-points, and the flowers connected with it may hold a peculiar
+significance in memory.
+
+It is a sad moment for a flower-lover when he sees before him "the last
+rose of summer" ("rose" is a term which may here be used in a general
+sense for any sweet and pleasing flower), and realizes that he is now
+face to face with the season's euthanasia, "that last brief resurrection
+of summer in its most brilliant memorials, a resurrection that has no
+root in the past, nor steady hold upon the future, like the lambent and
+fitful gleams from an expiring lamp." Yet so gradual is this change, and
+the resurrection of which De Quincey speaks so entrancing, that one is
+comforted even while he grieves.
+
+For example, there are few sights more cheering on a late September day
+than to find by some bare tidal river a colony of the marsh-mallow. The
+most admired member of the family is usually the muskmallow; and
+certainly it is a very pretty flower, with its bright foliage and the
+pink satiny sheen of its corolla; but far more charming, though less
+showy in appearance, is its modest sister of the salt marshes, whose
+leaves, overspread with hoary down, are soft as softest velvet, and her
+petals steeped in as tender and delicate a tint of palest rose-colour
+as could be imagined in dreams. There is something especially gracious
+about this _althaea_, or "healer"; and her virtues are not more soothing
+to body than to mind.
+
+It was from the Sussex shingles that I started, and from the same shore
+my concluding picture shall be drawn--a quaint sea-posy that I picked
+there on an October afternoon, not so romantic, certainly, as one of
+violets or forget-me-nots, but in that sere season not less heartening
+than any nosegay of the spring. It held but three flowers, samphire,
+sea-rocket, and sea-heath. The samphire, at all times a singular and
+attractive herb, was now in fruit, and had faded to a wan yellow; the
+rocket was still in flower, its lilac blossoms crowning the solid
+glaucous stalk, and its thick fleshy leaves rivalling the texture of
+seaweed; the small sea-heath, with wiry reddish stems and dark-green
+foliage, lent itself by a natural contrast for twining around its
+bulkier companions. Thus grouped they stood for weeks in a vase on my
+mantel, until the time for wildflowers was overpast, and the "black and
+tan" days of winter were already let loose on the earth. And even when
+the year is actually at its lowest, the sunnier times can be revived and
+re-enacted in thought; for memory is potent as that wizard in Morris's
+poem, who in the depth of a northern Christmastide could so wondrously
+transform the season,
+
+    That through one window men beheld the spring,
+    And through another saw the summer glow,
+    And through a third the fruited vines a-row;
+    While still unheard, but in its wonted way,
+    Piped the drear wind of that December day.
+
+Such flowery scenes has the writing of this little book brought back to
+me, and has robbed at least one winter of many cheerless hours.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+    Alpine bartsia, 154;
+      forget-me-not, 155;
+      lady's-mantle, 177;
+      meadow-rue, 153, 168, 174, 182;
+      mouse-ear, 176;
+      penny-cress, 107, 108;
+      saw-wort, 170, 174, 178
+    Amberley Wild Brooks, 35, 36
+    Arnside, 124-7
+    Arundel Park, 35, 142
+    Avens, mountain, 155, 169, 172;
+      water, 107, 132, 156
+
+    Baneberry, 126, 127, 129
+    Bellflower, ivy-leaved, 48, 148, 149, 172
+    Bladderwort, 34, 146, 147
+    Borage, 124
+    Butterwort, 87, 148, 177
+
+    Carpenter, Edward, 15, 45, 93, 100
+    Castleton, 108
+    Chiltern Hills, 16, 90, 94, 95
+    Cinquefoil, marsh, 147, 148, 156;
+      shrubby, 152, 153;
+      vernal, 105
+    Cloudberry, 110
+    Crabbe (quoted), 30, 78
+    Cranberry, 149
+    Crow-garlic, 92
+    Cuckmere Haven, 26
+    Cwm Glas, 165, 167-70
+    Cwm Idwal, 168-70
+
+    Dwale, 140
+
+    Farrer, Reginald, 66, 105, 129
+    Fritillary, 88, 89
+    Fungi, 80
+
+    Gentian, 72; marsh, 144, 145;
+       vernal, 66, 154, 155
+    Gerarde, John, 49, 87, 88, 91, 98, 110, 124, 130, 134, 140, 142
+    Globe-flower, 147, 169, 170
+    Gorse, 51, 52
+
+    Hare's-ear, "common," 46, 56, 87, 91;
+       slender, 26, 27
+    Hellebore, 126, 142
+    Hemlock, 143
+    Henbane, 140, 141
+    Hound's-tongue, 55, 71
+    Hudson, W. H., 12, 53 (note), 57, 88, 89
+    Hutchinsia, 47, 106, 123
+
+    Jefferies, Richard, 40, 81
+    Johns, C. A., 38, 61, 125
+    Jupp, W. J., 15
+
+    Kinderscout, 109-12
+
+    Lady's-mantle, 167, 171;
+      Alpine, 177
+    Letchworth, 92, 95, 96
+    Lewes brooks, 30-4
+    Lily of the valley, 41, 61, 125
+    Lloyd, E. Bertram, 16, 110, 111, 119, 183
+
+    Macmillan, Hugh, 162 (note), 175, 176
+    Marjoram, 69, 76, 103, 180
+    Marsh-cinquefoil, 147, 148
+    Marsh-mallow, 187
+    Meadow-rue, Alpine, 153, 168, 174, 182;
+      lesser, 108
+    Meadow-sage, 64, 183
+    Monk's-hood, 94, 142
+    Morris, William, 42 (note), 78, 188, 189
+    Moschatel, 87, 88
+    Moss-campion, 167, 171, 175, 176
+    Mouse-ear, Alpine, 176
+
+    Nightshade, deadly, 72, 74, 140
+    Nixon, Robert, 174, 176
+    Norton Common, 95, 96
+    Nottingham catch-fly, 105, 123
+
+    Olivier, Sir Sydney, 183
+    Orchis, 53-6, 70, 71, 85, 86, 126, 148;
+      bee, 53;
+      man, 74;
+      musk, 55;
+      spider, 53-5
+    Orme's Head, 121, 124
+
+    Pagham Harbour, 27
+    Pansy, mountain, 108, 152, 155, 172, 174
+    Perfoliates, 86, 87, 108
+    Pevensey, shingles, 25;
+      levels, 30, 34
+    Pilgrim's Way, 73
+    Pink, proliferous, 27;
+      Deptford, 79;
+      maiden, 123
+    Pratt, Anne, 11, 38, 60, 145, 150
+    Primrose, 64, 65, 131;
+      bird's-eye, 131, 152, 172;
+      water "violet," 31, 101, 102
+
+    Rampion, 53, 56, 74
+    Rock-rose, 53, 56, 72, 76, 103, 123
+
+    Saffron, meadow, 182
+    St. John's-worts, 11, 39, 79, 99, 148
+    Salmon, C. E., 17
+    Samphire, 24, 122, 188
+    Sandwort, vernal, 106, 108, 130, 167
+    Saw-wort, Alpine, 170, 174, 178
+    Saxifrages, 15, 22, 106, 167;
+      mossy, 106, 130, 167;
+      purple, 41, 130, 159-62;
+      snow, 155, 174, 180;
+      starry, 155, 167, 168, 180;
+      yellow, 156, 171, 177
+    Sheep's scabious, 82
+    Shelley (quoted), 25, 36, 139-41, 185, 186
+    Shoreham shingles, 22-4
+    Snapdragon, 84, 86
+    Snowdon, 158, 164-70
+    Spiderwort, 168, 171, 182
+    Squinancy-wort, 45, 72
+    Stitchwort, 20, 37
+    Sweet Cicely, 104
+
+    Teesdale, Upper, 66, 151-7
+    Thistle, "melancholy," 156, 157
+    Thoreau, H. D., 12, 71, 144, 181;
+       his _Journal_, 133-8
+    Thorn-apple, 141
+    Trefoils, 22, 23, 39, 40;
+      starry-headed, 23, 99
+
+    Vaughan, Canon J., 12 (note), 98
+    Vetches, 22, 23, 72
+    Viper's bugloss, 22, 71
+    Virgil, 69, 80
+
+    Water-soldier, 94, 98
+    White, Gilbert, 51, 77, 98
+    Wordsworth, 11, 42, 175, 184
+    Wye valley, 106, 107
+
+    Yellow-wort, 72, 87
+
+_Printed in Great Britain by_
+
+UNWIN BROTHERS THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Wildflower, by Henry S. Salt
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