PLATE 1.

Sea Milkwort.

Yellow Fumitory.

Alpine Barrenwort.

Pheasant's Bye.

FIELD

FLOWEES

A HANDY BOOK
FOR

THE RAMBLING BOTANIST,
SUGG-ESTING-

WHAT TO LOOK FOE AND WHERE TO GO IN THE
OUT-DOOR STUDY
OF

BRITISH PLANTS.
BY

SHIELEY HIBBEED,
AUTHOR OF ' T H E EERN GARDEN,' 'RUSTIC ADORNMENTS,' ETC. ETC

ILLUSTRATED WITH

EIGHT COLOURED PLATES AND NINETY WOOD ENGRAVINGS.

LONDON:
G E O O M B E I D G E AND
5, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1870.

SONS,

PRINTED BY J

E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

CONTENTS.

C H A P T E R I.
PAGE
INTEODUCTION

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I

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3

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CHAPTER II.
T H E F L O W E E S OE J A N U A E Y

0

CHAPTER III.
T H E F L O W E E S OE FEBETTAEY

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C H A P T E R IV.
T H E F L O W E E S OE M A E C H

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C H A P T E R V.
T H E F L O W E E S OE A P E I L

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34

CHAPTER VI.
T H E F L O W E E S OE M A Y

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Contents,

IV

CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
THE FLOWEES OE JUNE

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.61

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CHAPTER VIII.
THE FLOWEES OE JULY

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CHAPTER IX.
THE FLOWEES OE AUGUST

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134

CHAPTER X.
THE FLOWEES OE SEPTEMBEE AND GCTOBEE

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149

FIELD FLOWERS.
CHAPTER

I.

INTRODUCTION.

LITTLE knowledge is a dangerous thing. A
keen razor is also a dangerous thing; ditto a
lucifer match, a boiling kettle, petroleum oil,
and any so-called "royal road" to knowledge. Ignorance is a dangerous thing, and a little knowledge of
something or other may be as equally safe and useful;
perhaps also a source of entertainment and a stimulus
to inquiry which shall at last prove that Little is the
beginning of Much. Lord Bacon, in so far as his fame
rests on the particular aphorism cited above, is disposed
of, and we trust he will not interfere with any of our
rambles in the field or studies by the way, for we are
about to make a little series of foraging expeditions for
purposes of health, amusement, and the acquisition, if it
may be so, of a little knowledge of the vegetable
kingdom. It is next to impossible to enjoy a ramble in
the country or a sojourn at the seaside without some
knowledge of British plants, and every one who has
1

2

Field Flowers.

been questioned by an inquisitive youngster when
strolling through fields and lanes will admit that a little
knowledge is better than none at all. It is not given
to many to become botanists in the full sense of the word,
but every one to whom God ,has assigned the usual allotment of physical and mental faculties, should know all
the common plants of the heath and the wayside, not,
only by name, but to some extent also as to their history. As to the British Flora collectively, those who are
familiar with it throughout number so very few that the
majority of cultivated minds must be content with
a partial knowledge of the subject, for the simple
reason that complete knowledge is quite beyond the
reach of ordinary faculties and average opportunities of
observation and inquiry. But undoubtedly the more
complete our knowledge the better. This little book is
intended to aid in the first start, and it offers a little
knowledge only, bat it had better never have been
written, should it be by any received as in the sense of a
quantum suff., on the subject to which it is devoted.
It is intended as introductory to the study of British
plants, and in that sense should interest as well as teach.
Should it accomplish only the first of these requirements, it may justify the small amount of labour it has
cost, for it is indeed the work of an hour stolen from
severer duties.

The Flowers of January.

3

CHAPTER I I .
THE FLOWERS OF JANUARY.

IE may as well confess at once that there are
none. But as we have seen frost in July, and
I lightning in January, so we have in our time
made many a winter wreath of daisies, Christmas roses,
primroses, snowdrops, and golden winter furze, though
these flowers all properly belong to a later period of the
season—they are not winter, but spring flowers. On the
few days when a walk is possible in January, we need
not stay within doors because vegetation is utterly
unattractive. No, no. The forms of leafless trees seen
against a clear grey sky should be entertainment
enough even to one who is now commencing the study
of botany. If you persevere in that one line of observation, my friend, you will in time learn to distinguish the
several kinds of trees as easily by their outlines in
winter as by their leaves or fruits in summer. See the
oak spreading his gaunt arms horizontally as if performing a feat of strength. Observe the beech, how
bold and strong in aspect, yet everywhere touched with
a grace that the,rugged oak disdains to imitate. Compare the spiry poplar that goes up like a brush (you
may remember a ridiculous observation on the form of

4

Field Flowers,

this tree by the author of 'Vestiges/ the "electric
brush realised/' &c. &c), compare this gigantic pencil
with the elm and the lime, and note, now as the sunshine
skims over the distant wood, what perhaps you never
noted before, that the colours of leafless trees when
lighted by sunshine appear uniformly tinged with a
fine deep red body colour, so that if you had to paint a
winter scene with sunshine, you would have to wash
all the trees with a tone of red. Now allow me to
make an observation which the practice of gardening
has taught me about trees.
It is, that the configuration and general arrangement
of their roots corresponds very closely indeed to the
forms of their heads and their mode of growth above
ground. There is a reason why it should be so in the
constitution of the tree itself, but comparatively few
people have taken notice of the fact. It was first forced
upon my attention when taking up some examples of
the flat-headed yew, Taxus adpressa, the roots of which
spread out like a mat in exact imitation of the table-top
branches of the tree.
From the leafless trees we may turn to the evergreens.
Here is a great old holly on which you may observe
two sorts of leaves : those from the ground to about ten
feet above it being distinctly lobed, twisted, and prickly
according to the proper pattern of a holly leaf; those
on the topmost part of the tree without lobes, without
spines, and not in the least twisted—like small laurel
leaves, in fact, rather than leaves of holly. It was to
this characteristic of an ancient holly that Southey
referred in his well-known lines—

The Flowers of January.

5

0, reader! bast thou ever, stood to see
The Holly tree!
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound an atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound.
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.

A similar change in the form of the leaf takes place
in the ivy. While climbing and extending itself the
leaves are distinctly lobed, and the branches are like
ropes or wires. But when it has gained the topmost
tower and must dangle from the summit, the leaves
cease to be lobed, and become more oval and quite
regular in form, and the branches become more treelike and woody. If you at once find an example of ivy
that for many years has formed a great round head upon
buttress or- gable, you will see that the leaves are smooth
and undivided, and a majority of the branches terminate
in clusters of black berries.
Two good lessons for artists: happy they who learn
them thoroughly. In case the example of the ivy is
not understood, here is a figure of a branch of fruiting
ivy which will explain it sufficiently.
If we cannot find flowers this month, we can at least
prepare for the time when flowers will abound; and the
most important preliminary is that of preparing the
machinery for collecting and preserving the botanical

6

Field Flowers.

spoils that will fall to our lot when we take to the road
and become happy vagabonds.

TREE IVY.

I t matters not what sort of plant we may wish to
preserve, the process of preparing it is the same in
principle all through. "We must endeavour to obtain
it in a dried state so nearly perfect that it shall still

The Flowers of January.

7

present a natural appearance in form, colour, attitude,
and every character. You will experience no trouble
in obtaining what is called a " botanical box/' made of
tin, to carry with you in your travels, but you may do
without it. If you wish to preserve only a few little
wildings, a book of any sort will serve the purpose, with
the aid of a few slips of clean blotting-paper. Take a fair
specimen, place it between two pieces of blotting-paper,
and close the book upon it, and put the book aside with
a weight upon it. During hot dry weather a plant of
thin texture will be well dried with its colours tolerably
perfect in the course of twenty-four hours by this simple
method. It is, however, much too rough and ready for
all the purposes of the field botanist. Let us return,
therefore, to the tin box, respecting which it may be
said that, as thousands of botanists have employed it,
wishing for nothing better, we have the testimony of
these thousands to its usefulness.
I managed to supersede the tin box, however, very
early in my rambling days by adapting a despatch
case, which, when put to this purpose, we may call the
folding vasculum. It is, as the figure will indicate, well
adapted to be carried at one's back in the way of a
knapsack, and it may be expanded to such a size both
back and front as to accommodate the spoils of a really
great day in collecting. It is the proper thing for one
who goes out botanising in earnest, for, if furnished
with blotting-paper, the plants can be laid out properly
in the first instance, and the drying process commences
at the instant of their being gathered. Many a time
have I taken out specimens of the same day's gathering

8

Field Flowers.

and found them so perfectly dried that they were ready
for mounting at once. My old folding vasculum is a

THE FOLDING- VASCULUM.

stout tough thing, suited in strength and make to be
handed on from father to son through many generations
of botanists. I t measures seventeen inches by eleven
inches when opened to the full extent. The breadth

The Flowers of January,

9

inside is nine inches; when shut up close it is only one
inch thick.
It will be well to suppose now that you have reached
your house or hostelry after a day's ramble, and that
your vasculum is full. You will' now require a lot of
blotting paper, or coarse sugar paper, for the drying
business, and a couple of boards of smooth deal. Lay out
a specimen on two or three thicknesses of paper with a
board beneath. Do not attempt to dry more of any
plant than will suffice for its fair representation; as a
rule, you do not need the roots, and a portion of stem
will be sufficient.
Over the selected specimen lay a
good thickness of paper; on this another plant, and so
on, until the book is likely to grow too thick, or your
patience is exhausted. Then put on the other board
and over it a pile of books or whatever else may be
convenient for pressure, and leave the affair for half a
day at least; then take to pieces and rebuild in this
way: sit beside a clean fire, make a few sheets of paper
quite hot by holding them near the fire, and transfer
the plants from the cold damp papers to the hot dry
ones, put on the, board and the weights as before.
Kepeat this process until your plants are quite dry.
If accomplished quickly and carefully, they will retain
much of their natural colours, and be supple and full of
character.
A method of drying thin textured plants at one
operation is adopted with success by many lady
botanists. The specimen is laid between considerable
thicknesses of blotting paper and a hot iron applied.
There is yet a better method than either of the fore-

10

Field Flowers.

going. Prepare several tablets of plaster of Paris, of
the size of the book the specimens are to be mounted
in, and full an inch in thickness. These should be made
by a worker in plaster, who, if instructed to make
them very light, will produce a sort of plaster sponge.
In drying plants first warm (and be careful not to crack
by too sudden exposure to heat) one of these plates; on
it lay a sheet of warm paper , then a plant, next paper,
*
plate, paper, plant, and so on. In two hours you may
repeat the process, and twice warming will suffice for
almost any class of specimens, however succulent. The
plaster plan preserves the natural colours beautifully,
the reason being that it so quickly absorbs every
particle of moisture from the plants.
"We are only on the threshold to the subject at
present, but must not go further. At this point, a few
special hints may be added. Plants of a resinous
nature, such as pines and firs, are apt to crumble to
powder when dried. This may be prevented by dipping
them in boiling water for a few minutes before drying
them. Fungi may be dried by the simple process of
bedding them in silver sand, gills upwards, in small tin
boxes, and placing the boxes in a slow oven for two or
three hours. Mosses and lichens make good specimens
if skilfully treated by the flat-iron process.
To dispose of the specimens in an orderly way for
purposes of reference is the object of constructing a
Herbarium or Hortus siccus. Tough cartridge paper
is the best material, and it is well if every separate sheet
is occupied with only one plant. The best cement is a
solution of gum arabic, with a few drops of a solution of

The Flowers of January.

11

corrosive sublimate in alcohol added to prevent the
ravages of insects. In mounting the specimens there
is considerable opportunity for the exercise of taste and
judgment; which no doubt you will be glad of, for as
art is the " handmaid of science/' an elegant herbarium
affords agreeable aid in the study of botany* The final
process is to label the specimens, in which you will
need the aid of books.
One example must here suffice to indicate how the
labelling should be done, and it will also serve to indicate how a dandelion on a sandy bank, shining in
unconscious splendour, may, when transferred to the
herbarium, become an awful nucleus for the aggregation around it of a sufficient number of hard words to
make one's head ache. But that's the beauty of
botany; if it does not make one wise, it makes one
appear so, and it must be a fine thing to drag a little
weed out of a dirty pond and call it Zannichellia pedicellata, or to point to a sedge by the same water as the
rare and beautiful Eleocharts acicularis. But here's
the label; pray don't divulge to the world that there's
anything to provoke a smile in the study of botany.
N A T U B A L SYSTEM.

Class—Exogenee.
Sub-Class—Monopetalse.
Order—Compositacese.
(Several florets united in one receptacle.)
Genus—Leontodon.

LINNJEAN

SYSTEM.

Dlass—Syngenesia
)rder—Polygamia iEqualis.
[All the flowers furnished
stamens and pistils.)

Leontodon Taraxacum.
Dandelion.
Cheshunt, Herts,
March, 1861.

with

12

Field Flowers.

CHAPTER I I I .
THE FLOWERS OF FEBRUARY.

T all depends upon the weather for flowers at
this flowerless time. At the very best we
shall not find many, but it will be strange if
we do not find on sheltered banks and in neglected
corners of the garden some wildings worth our notice.
The mention of the garden reminds me that the field
botanist will there learn some most useful lessons, for
in the first place, every garden plant, no matter of what
sort, is worthy of observation, not simply because of its
own peculiar beauty, but because of its botanical
affinities and structural peculiarities ; and in the second
place, a large proportion of our hardy garden plants are
natives of Britain, or closely related to members of our
indigenous flora. Thus we have in our woods and
pastures two species of Hellebore, namely, Helleborus
fmtidus, the stinking hellebore, which produces its
green flowers in February and March, and H. viridis,
the green hellebore, flowering a month later. But the
lovely Christmas rose, H. niger, the black-rooted hellebore of the old herbalists, a native of Austria, represents the whole family in the garden, and is justly prized
as one of the best of hardy flowers. Sometimes so

The Flowers of February.

13

early as Christmas, especially if we have sharp frosts in
October and November, and muggy weather immedately afterwards, this noble plant presents us with its
large white flowers, resembling those of the water-lily,
and serving to the fanciful mind by its occurrence in
the midst of winter gloom, as the counterpart of Gray's
gem shining in the darkness of the ocean.—
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

BLELLEBORTTS NIGER.

If you can find in the flowers or even in the leaves of
any of the true hellebores a resemblance to the buttercup, you will have made a serviceable step in the study
of botany. Pull a flower to pieces and as soon after as

14

Field Flowers.

possible (better if simultaneously) do the same with the
flower of a buttercup, and endeavour to discover if there
is any reason for associating them together as members
of the same family.
The Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, we expect to see
in February and rarely have to wait beyond the month
for it. And most precious it is for its beauty. There
may occur too on a sunny sandy mound a few stray
flowers of the Dandelion, Leontodon taraxacum; you
may be sure to find somewhere in the garden a bit of
Groundsel, Senecio vulgaris in flower; the Coltsfoot,
Tussilago farfara will perhaps sprinkle the railway
bank with a number of its glittering golden stars, which
no wild flower of this season can equal for splendour;
and on heaps of rubbish and in the warmer corners
of grass fields we may find the very rustic but pretty
and characteristicflowersof the Red Dead-nettle, Lamium
purpureum, which, as its name implies, will not sting the
hand that plucks it. By the river side we may meet
with the Marsh marigold, Caltha palustris; and on
grassy slopes near the water's edge, and in moist spots
under trees, there may be already expanded a flower or
two of the lesser Celandine, Ranunculus ficaria, ovFicaria
ranunculoides, the flower that "Wordsworth loved—
" There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the Little Celandine."

Now, here in the same February garland we have
representatives of four great natural families of plants.
The hellebores, as above remarked, are relations of the
buttercups, which constitute the first order of the

The Flowers of February.

15

natural system. To this same family belong the marsh
marigold, and the little celandine. The dandelion,
groundsel, and coltsfoot are members of the great order
of compound flowers, largely represented by the asters
of the garden, and the hawkweeds of the woods. The
dead-nettle belongs to the lipped flowered or labiate

BED DEAD NETTLE.

family, in which a considerable number of aromatic
plants, as for example, sage and thyme are found.
Lastly, the snowdrop represents two great orders, the
lilies and the amaryllids. Instead of hunting up bits of
poetry and stale anecdotes about these plants, let us take

16

Field Flowers.

one of them, say the little celandine, as it is especially
a poet's flower, and study its life history.
The Lesser Celandine, or Pilewort, is fully described

THE LESSEE CELANDINE.

in all the technical books and in pretty nearly the same
terms. But none of them give us its life history. It
has bright green glossy, heart-shaped leaves, brilliant
yellow flowers, with nine pointed petals, which give it a

The Flowers of February.

17

somewhat starry aspect, and in common with the
buttercups, its near relations, every flower contains a
great many oblong anthers. At the base of each petal
is a triangular scale as at A in the subjoined figure.
In the flowers of the Christmas rose, and also in
the Globe flower, Trollius europaus, similar scales are
to be found.
The anthers or pollen cases, which
cluster in the centre, are oblong or elliptical, and burst
along the two outer edges as at B in the figure.

a

^

c

Now this plant appears to be perfectly fitted up to
produce seed, and by this means to multiply itself, as
many other kinds of buttercups do. But one of its
peculiarities is that it seldom or never produces seed;
and yet the flowers do not open until nine o'clock in
the morning, and close again early in the afternoon; in
dull or wet weather they do not open at all during the
day, which would lead one to think that the organs of
fructification were sufficiently protected. The pollen,
too, if examined under the microscope, appears to be
perfect; perhaps the fact of its not ripening seed may
be accounted for by the cold and wet weather we
usually have during the time it is in flower. It may
with reason then be asked, How is the plant propagated ?
2

18

Field Flowers,

There is always plenty of this Ranunculus to be seen
in the spring, and if it be not increased by seeds there
must be some other mode equally efficacious. Yes, if
you examine the plant when it is just going out of
flower, you will find little whitish tubers, about the
size of grains of wheat, in the axils of all the leaves, as
at A in the next figure; these, by the decay of the
plant, are scattered upon the ground, and serve the
purpose of perpetuating the species quite as well as seeds
could do. I believe, from an examination of specimens
from a more southern clime, that the celandine never
produces both seed and these tubers at the same time.
It is unnecessary for the plant to be propagated in
both ways, and, therefore, this is the more likely to be
the case.
The Lesser Celandine loves the sloping banks of a
stream, it is often found also under the shade of trees;
but, unless the ground is very moist, it does not there
grow so luxuriantly as by the water-side. If during
autumn we part with our hands the coarse grass and
weeds in such a situation, we find great numbers of
the seed-like tubers lying on the ground; I have
counted fifty or more within the area of a square foot.
About the middle of February they begin to grow, as
shown in the subjoined figures; B, C, and D, being
their first stages, and E being a complete young plant.
By the second week in March they have reached the
state seen in D, the old tuber is shrivelling up, and
new ones are in course of formation. Some of these
young plants even grow submerged, and in that case
the leafstalks are always longer than usual. The

The Flowers of February.

19

plants which are developed from the little axillary
tubers are generally about three weeks later in coming
into flower than those which have been previously
established. I cannot understand why it is we do not
find more old plants, seeing that so many young ones
make their appearance every spring; and yet there

STAGES OE GEOWTH OP THE TUBERS OF THE PILEWOET.

must be some cause which kills them off by thousands.
This is by no means the only British plant which is
destroyed in this wholesale manner; and the curious
problem which this question opens would furnish the
intellectual observer with a wide field for discovery.
We have in our gardens, that is to say, in a few gardens where beautiful hardy plants are really appreciated^
some pretty varieties of the celandine, the best of them

20

Field Flowers.

being the double white and double yellow. These may
be multiplied by dividing the plants, as may our
wilding; and also by gathering up the white tubers that
fall from the axils when the leaves begin to wither in
the summer time. To say that Wordsworth is always
happy in his rural images, would be like'informing the
reader that grass is green and the sky blue. But not
too many perhaps are familiar with that pretty conceit
in which he makes his favorite flower represent the
rising sun of the sign-painter; but it is just after the
pattern of this pretty flower the itinerant artist portrays the god of day as a welcome to rest for the weary
traveller.
I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays
(Workman worthy to be sainted)
Set the sign-board in a blaze,
When the rising sun he painted,
Took the fanny from a glance
Of thy glittering countenance.

CETTCTEOKM BLOSSOM OP WALLELOWEE.

PETAL OE WALLELOWEE

a, petal; b, stamens; c, flower cup, or
calyx; d, peduncle, or flower-stem.

a, limb; b, claw,

The Flowers of March.

21

CHAPTER IV.
THE FLOWERS OF MARCH.

OOD weather or bad.weather we shall be sure
of flowers now both in the garden and the
field. I t is desirable therefore in the month
of March to brush up the organ of botany, in whatever
part of the cranium it may be situated, and hunt up
the various readings from the poets, which custom has
stereotyped as essential aids to the study of field
flowers. It is in the neighbourhood of a town or the very
heart of a village where we shall be most likely to make
good finds in the month of March, not in the open
champaign country, or on the dreary moors. The very
first perhaps to greet us on a sunny morning will be
the Chick weed, Stellaria media, a prominent member of
the caryophyllaceous order, and therefore a relation of
the pinks and carnations. What a bonny sheet of
emerald green dotted with whitest stars it makes on the
sheltered hedge-bank and on all the flower-beds of the
newly made garden—a beautiful plant, but little noticed
because "common of the common place." The bird
fancier can scarcely look at a bank of shining chickweed
without echoing the familiar song of the streets, ec chickweed and grunsel for your singing birds." It is not

22

Field Flowers.

only good for cage birds, but makes a good dish of
spinach if carefully cooked. Several interesting little
plants will now be coming into bloom in sheltered
nooks, on sandy soils, and amongst rocks, and on the
summits of old walls. The most beautiful of all these
is the whitlow grass, Draba verna, a plant much
prized for planting on the " rockery " in the garden.
The leaves form a minute tuft, all radiating from the
centre, whence springs the slender flower stem bearing
little white cross-shaped (cruciferous) flowers and oval
seed pods. Every separate plant covers about the same
extent of ground as a florin would, but we rarely meet
with a single plant; if it occurs at all it is usually,
as at Tunbridge rocks for example, in dense masses,
forming exquisite miniature flower gardens on a ground
work of greenest moss. The Yellow Whitlow grass, D.
aizoides, is still more beautiful and very rare in this
country, though plentiful in alpine countries on the Continent. The only recorded British station of this
plant is " near Swansea," but you may find it in any of
the large nurseries where extensive collections of
herbaceous plants are grown. A. host of pretty relatives
of this plant may be found on any sunny spots and
especially on walls. One of them may be recognised by
its peculiar lyre-shaped leaves, forming an elegant flat
tuft and smooth flower-stalks bearing white cross-shaped
flowers and little globose seed-vessels. It is the Naked
stalked Teesdale, Teesdalia nudicaulis. An equally
pretty and very distinctive companion plant is the rock
Hutchinsia, Hutchinsia petrcea, which has leaves like
those of some small fern—or that may rather be likened

The Flowers of March.

23

to fairy ladders, or the backbone of a fish,—and very
small clusters of white or lilac tinted flowers, and small
oval seed pods. Both these are somewhat scarce and
more likely to be found on rocks and sandy banks in
the West of England than anywhere else, yet they are
not so local as to be altogether past finding anywhere
and everywhere on sites and soils adapted to them.
Very common indeed is another of the same family, the
Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa pastoris, which you
may instantly recognise by its distinct heart-shaped seed
pods, differing so much from those of Thlaspi and other
genera that come near to it that mistake is next to
impossible. Though one of the commonest weeds, this
is a good plant to make a study of. On the starving
wall it becomes a miniature beauty, in the fat furrow a
coarse and altogether unattractive plant. Linnseus first
grouped the cross-flowering or cruciferous plants as they
are now classed by botanists, making two great divisions of short-pod and long-pod bearers, the five plants
we have now had before us being examples of the first
division, the long-pods comprising mustards, charlocks,
and stocks, that flower later in the season. We will
quit the shepherd's purse then with the remark that it
may be a post-diluvian creation, because purses were not
known before the flood, perhaps not money either.
"Madame Eve, who was straight as the sticks of sky-rockets,
First brought up the fashion of wearing no pockets."

Quite equal in attractiveness to the snug sheltered
nooks in villages are the margins of woods just now,
for those who are hunting for wild flowers. And ere

24

Field Flowers.

we begin to search amongst the heaps of drifted leaves
and amongst the dead bracken, and the coarse grass on
the slopes, and in the damp hollows, it may be well to
look up and enjoy the delicate tracery of the trees, the
interlacings of their slender branches and the exquisite
pencillings they make upon the clear, cold, grey sky.

CATKIN BLOSSOM OP COMMON BIRCH.

What are those tassels and peppercorn-like things that
dot the trees all over, and that you never noticed
before ? Why they are the flowers; the woods are now
in flower, or fast coming into flower, and if we are to
make any progress in field botany, we must take the trees
into council with us and ask them what their notions

The Flowers of March.

25

about flowers are. Observe the downy catkins of the
Hazel nut, Corylus avellana ; they are the male flowers,
and are always produced in the topmost parts of the
tree. Below them are the female flowers, for which we
may have to search, as they are less conspicuous, for
they are like scaly buds, and are situated just where by
and bye the fruit will be. A large number of trees
flower in precisely the same manner as the familiar
hazel, as the beech, the willow, the birch, &c. The long
catkins are the male flowers, which make their appearance frequently in the autumn, and attain complete
development in spring when the female flowers, which
are quite inconspicuous, become perfect in form and
function.
The question is at last forced upon us, What is a
flower? It will be well, perhaps, if we endeavour to
puzzle out a reply to the question as we go along; but
stop! who could be puzzled with any question or reply
in the face of such a bank of primroses as that yonder,
where it seems as if the stars had come down from
heaven to look for the angels that went astray after the
daughters of men ages ago. You may have seen primroses before, but the flower is not one you can speak of
as old, or as common, or as a weed, and yet, if the proprieties of speech are strictly observed it is old, and
common, and a thorough weed, but its beauty secures
for it exceptional consideration; for we look upon primroses as upon people who never have chilblains or bad
tempers. A most variable plant is this, and one that
may be studied for a lifetime without being completely
understood^ as Mr. Darwin would tell you. You may

26

Field Flowers.

see, in some of the woody districts in Devonshire and
Somerset, great circular clumps of wild primroses, covering sometimes as much as a hundred square yards each,
and comprising flowers of fifty different hues. Sometimes
in these clumps there is not one yellow or yellowishwhite flower, though these are the prevailing colours of
primroses in the midlands and the east of England.
But we shall find palest lilac, delicate rose, rich purple,
and sometimes a rare and curious tint of blue, with
here and there a flower in which the nurple and the

FLOWER OF COMMON PRIMROSE LAID OPEN.

a, limb of corolla; b, tube of corolla; c, calyx; dt pistil;
e, stamens.

yellow have become absurdly mixed, the result being
an indescribable dirty brown colour—a primrose almost
obnoxious to the sight! But the variability under
cultivation is more remarkable.
We have in our
gardens primroses of all colours except clear scarlet

The Flowers of March.

27

and true blue, and many of them are so truly superb that
in their season there are really no hardy plants to surpass them, especially the large single mauve-coloured
variety called "lilacina," and the "doable crimson/'
and " double white/'
Now is it not odd, that in sheer admiration of a
primrose I have actually pulled it to pieces ? It's a
wonder I did not put it in my mouth and chew it up to
prove my regard for it. But that's the way of the
world—to spoil all pets and make them ridiculous.
However, here is a flower I have partially destroyed,
and it presents a good vertical section for a first lesson

COMPLETE FLOWER OE COMMON PRIMROSE.

a, tube of corolla; h, tubular campanulate calyx.

in botany, so let us make a beginning thus, in technical
education> I place a complete flower beside it to give
speed to the teaching.
A complete flower, no matter of what kind, contains
five sets of organs. Now the primrose is a complete

Field Flowers.

28

flower, as distinguished from such flowers as those of
the hazel that we were admiring just now, all of which
are incomplete, and thus nature, for the perpetuation of
the species, must produce two sorts of hazel flowers on
every hazel tree. In the primrose flowers we have a
corolla, usually of a pale yellow colour, which consists of
five petals. The corolla is, in the majority of instances,
the most showy part of a flower, but there are many
remarkable exceptions; here^ at all events, the petals
are broad, united below into a tube, and expanding
above into a salver-shaped cup; and it is the corolla
which attracts us, and constitutes the characteristic
part of the flower. But below the petals are five green,
clasping, claw-like leaves called sepals, which form a

STAMEN.

a, anther; b, filament; c, pollen.

PISTIL OP PEIMROSE.

a, stigma; b, style; c, ovary.

separate tube or cup as if for the protection of the
flower, and bearing the name of calyx. If we look
inside the flower we shall find attached to the petals
small oval bodies called stamens, which are the male

The Flowers of March.

29

organs, and produce a fertilising dust called pollen. In
the very centre of the flower is a solitary pistil, or female

SALVER-SHAPED BLOSSOM OE COMMON PRIMROSE.

a, Globular stigma showing at mouth of cylindrical tube.

organ, the function of which is to receive the fertilising
dust, and convey it by means of the style or stem which

DIAGRAM OE A PERFECT FLOWER.

a a, Calycine, or external whorl, of organs alternating
with b b, corolline w h o r l ; c c, staminal whorl, opposite
calycine divisions, alternate with corolline ; d d, pistilline
whorl, opposite corolline, alternating with staminal and
calycine.

supports the head of the pistil, called the stigma, to the
ovary at the base of the flower, within which the seeds
are formed.

30

Field Flowers.

A dry lesson this, perhaps, but certainly a scanty
one; for the few points touched upon do not carry us
beyond the threshold of structural botany. Yet these
few facts at least must be borne in mind and understood if field flowers are to be gathered with earnestness
for any purpose beyond the moment of the gathering,
and the ambition to seem without being wise.
A perfect flower consists of (1) corolla, (2) calyx, (3)
stamens, (4) pistils, (5) ovary. The corolla consists of
petals; the calyx of sepals; the stamens consist of filaments or threads, and anthers or knobs; the pistils
consist of styles or pollen-conducting tubes; and stigmas,
or heads; the ovaries are one or many celled, and
contain the seed or seeds.
What is that yonder, so delicately green and glossy ?
A fern? No. A flag? No, no. It is the Cuckoo
pint, or Wake-robin, Arum maculatum, the leaves of
which (hastate or sagittate), you must observe, closely
resemble those of the " trumpet lily" of the cottager's
window, the Calla JEthiopica of gardeners. You will
never forget it now, for we have no other plant like i t ;
even the hart's tongue fern, which you thought of when
you first saw it, is as unlike it as can well be. I shall
never forget it, I can tell you; for, when a boy, a playmate, who professed to know all the " herbs" and their
several qualities, persuaded me to eat a leaf while he
ate one too, and we were both nearly poisoned, and
suffered horribly for hours as if we were being choked
with red-hot coals. Oh! how we gargled our mouths
with the dirty water of a pond, and bellowed with pain,
and gave ourselves up as lost, and actually foamed at

The Flowers of March.

31

the mouth, and raved as if mad, as perhaps we were for
a time ! I shall never forget it. Yet what a prettything it is, fringing the damp hollow now with its bright

AETJM SPATHE,

Including essential organs of plant reproduction ;
a, stamens ; b, pistils.

green spotted leaves, and how much more beautiful will
it be later on in the season when it presents to view its
brave spike of scarlet berries, and becomes then to the

32

Field Floivers.

children the much-renowned " lords and ladies." The
French call it Bonnet de Grand Pretre, the Germans
Aronswurz. In a short while hence this arum will be in
flower, and will afford a good subject for observation. I t
has no proper corolla, but a kind of sheath called a spat he.
The white trumpet of the trumpet lily is not a corolla, but
a spathe. Within this spathe is a club-shaped spadix,
shorter than the spathe, bearing upon it two sorts of
flowers, which look unlike flowers, but in truth are so,
for the lowermost consist of ovaries with stigmas, and
the next above them consist of stamens, and these three
organs are sufficient for the multiplication of the species,
the lowermost of the series producing the berries or
seeds by which the plant is perpetuated and increased.
The little ring of scales at the immediate base of the
purple club appears to consist of abortive ovaries, as if,
under more favorable conditions of life, the stamens
or gentlemen would have ladies on each side of them,
and could say in freeness of choice, " How happy could
I be with either," without wishing " t'other dear
charmers away."
To leave the wood without finding a violet would be
to lose an opportunity. Well, have we not several
times in this short ramble walked over yielding pavements of them and held our speech for several seconds
at a time in admiration of their beauty, and joy of their
delicious odour. We must not say a word as to the
beauty of the flower, and must actually be content with
one quotation of poetry to close this chapter. Here,
however, is a diagram of a violet to show that in construction it differs but little from its boon companion

The Flowers of March,

33

the primrose* There are five petals, one of which is
prolonged into what is called the " spur/ 5 five sepals.

FLOWER OP VIOLET.

a, Corolla; 5, calyx; <?, peduncle or flower-stalk;
df bracts; e, spur of corolla.

five stamens, one pistil, and one ovary.
shall be from Wordsworth.

The quotation

She dwelt beside the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid where there were none to praise,
And very few to love.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

3

34

Field Flowers.

CHAPTER Y.
THE FLOWERS OF A P R I L .

HEY are as numerous as the stars of heaven, and
like the milky way in heaven they make a
glowing girdle round the earth.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars which they beheld.

Yet plentiful as flowers will be before the month is
out, we must wait awhile ere the world will appear to
be covered with them, for the moorlands are as yet
black as ink where heather rules, and black also in the
groundwork where the furze or whin predominates,
but here the black ground-work is patched with blazing
gold, and the watercourses are all marked out distinctly with lines of new greenery amidst which flowers
of many kinds may be found. The cultivated lands are
fast brightening to the magical touch of spring, and
four good pioneers lead the way for the (i rosy-footed
hours/' to dance their first gay measures on the mead
on days when the sun shines brightly and the keen
east wind is stilled for a season, and the honey-bees
make music on the fruit walls and in the orchard, in the

The Flowers of April

35

delusive belief that summer has really come. The four
pioneers are first the Dandelion, which as a rule takes
the lead and makes a glorious show on every sandy bank
and neglected spot of ground. Next comes the Daisy,
Bellis perennis, dotting the grass lands with its snowwhite stars. Instantly upon the first general gleam of
daisies, appears the Cuckoo flower, Cardamine pratensis,
the appearance of which gives the signal, not only for
the cuckoo to sing, but for the buttercups to blow.
When the cardamine is first in flower, we shall find
only a single buttercup here and there in the meadows,
but we know that a host are coming, and very soon the
pastures will be true fields of cloth of gold. There can
be no need to describe any of these except the cardamine, and that may be identified most easily and will
never afterwards be forgotten. It is a humble but
cheerful plant with conspicuous white or very pale lilac
flowers (cruciferous) like those of a single stock, and
pinnated leaves which may be likened to a comb; the
seed-pods narrow and long. It is evidently a member
of the long-pod division of the great family of crossflowered plants, very many of which are edible or pungent, or aromatic, and productive of cheerfulness one
way or the other to many forms of animal life. You
may taste the leaves with safety, you will find them pungent, and will be able to guess that they impart a spicy
relish to the hay and help the cattle to enjoy their dry
winter provender. This is the " lady smock all silver
white " of Shakespeare, in many districts renowned for
the pure whiteness of its flowers and their extreme profusion in the April landscape, which appears as if

36

Field Flowers.

covered with linen put out to bleach. It is preeminently a plant of the fat lands, the sandy waste and the
grim moorland know it not; the buttercups that follow
it in the pastures belong to the fat lands too, and the
wise man who buys a " parcel of land " will prefer a tract
on which these plants will grow rather than one covered
with dandelions, docks, or drabas.
Let us look about us and we shall see in the old
hedgerows and on the skirts of woodlands the white
blossoms of the sloe, Prunus spinosa. This is the
"black thorn " of the countryman. You cannot well
mistake this for the " white thorn " or 'e hawthorn/'
for that will not bloom until at least a month later, and
in a very backward season we may wait for the white
thorn until June. You may be able to sing as you go
on your journey that sweet old song—
From the white-blossomed sloe
My dear Cliloe requested
A sprig her fair breast to adorn.

If you will remember that the sloe is in its affinities
a rose, and will observe how its tiny white flowers
resemble roses, that maybe enough as a note of observation for the present. Now observe at your very feet
a lovely blue flower; it is heavenly blue, and its handsome notched heart-shaped leaves add considerably to
its beauty. What is it ? A forget-me-not ? No. A
pimpernel? No. It is the Germander speedwell,
Veronica chamcedrys (Plate 8), the " eye-bright" of the
village botanist, and to the poet the

The Flowers of April.

37

. . . . Flower whose hedge-side gaze
Is like an infant's.

The speedwell may afford us a pretty lesson, at all
events, in one particular, for its flowers are irregular in
form, one segment being smaller than the rest. This is
the loveliest of its race amongst our wildings, a perfect
jewel among field flowers; but in the garden are to be
found grander species of Veronica, though there are
none we should sooner love. Not far off you may be
sure are several other species closely allied to the

COROLLA OE GERMANDER SPEEDWELL.

a a, The stamens attached to the corolla.

Germander speedwell. A charming little thing is the
Ivy-leaved speedwell, V. hederifolia, with pretty leaves,
lobed like those of the wild ivy,'thick in texture and of
a fine green hue; the flowers are intensely blue, but
smaller than those of the "flower of the flock." A
commoner species than these we shall, perhaps, not find
in the hedgerow, but we are almost sure to find it in the
garden, making patches which may be likened to dusty
chickweed in the leaves, and the flowers are pretty, but
rather suggesting a washed-out blue than a tint of the

38

Field Flowers,

sapphire. I t is the common speedwell, V. officinalis, a
very variable plant, sometimes downy, sometimes
smooth, yet always recognisable when once fairly
known in any of its more distinctive forms. You may
like to try it as a tea-plant, for in old times an infusion of the leaves was a favorite beverage, and some
good and wise men have pronounced it a more wholesome source of tea than the leaves with which the
Chinese supply us. Equally common is the Grey
speedwell, V. agrestis, which our hedgerow will probably
supply in as great abundance as the garden. Generally
this has one white segment in its tiny peep-eye flowers,
by means of which it may be distinguished.
On the bank where the sloe is imitating a snowdrift
we shall probably find the Ground ivy, Glechoma
hederacea. If you do not happen to know it, there
will be no harm in the remark that it is not an ivy at'
all, and only remotely resembles ivy, being a true labiate
or lip-flowered plant. I t is a lowly, much spreading
trailer, with heart-shaped leaves and whorls of deep
lilac flowers. When bruised the plant emits an agreeable odour suggestive of those wholesome properties
for which it was once so highly valued as a medicinal
herb. On the self-same bank you may look for the
brilliant flowrers of the Red campion, Lychnis diurna,
a smallish, but bold-looking catchfly, with bright
purplish-pink flowers, and leaves like those of some
gigantic chickweed. You may well mistake this for its
near relative, the Ragged Robin, Lychnis flos-cuculi,
which, however, is readily distinguished by its divided
petals, every one ofwhich is deeply 4-cleft. This last

The Flowers of April.

39

you may again confound with the Herb Eobert
Cranesbill, Geranium robertianum (Plate 2), which, however, is a most delicate plant in its several and separate
features, though coarse enough in the mass sometimes.
The Herb Eobert has light green, deeply divided leaves,
and extremely neat, lively pink flowers, and seed vessels so closely resembling those of the green-house
^~~a

WILD GERANIUM (HERtf ROBERT),

PETAL OF WILD GERANIUM.

a, Petals; b, calyx.

a9 Limb; b, claw.

geranium (Pelargoniums of the botanist) that by
this mark you may*know a true geranium for all time.
We are amongst the flowers now, and no mistake!
There are thirteen geraniums in the British Flora, all
of which are distinguished from the Pelargoniums—the
Geraniums of the garden—by their regular corollas,
the pelargoniums having always two distinctive top
petals, less distinctive, however, of late years, owing to
the labours of the florists to equalize the petals, in
which they have been so successful that some of the
" scarlet geraniums" or "zonate pelargoniums/' as
« Eichard Headly/' and " Tfi omas Moore" for example,
present us with scarlet flowers in which it is next to

40

Field Flowers.

impossible to discover any difference at all in the size
of the petals.
But let us go on towards the lower grounds, where
the watercourse has marked itself out with a line of
willows, and alders, and rushes, and coarse grasses, and
has persuaded a host of lovely wildings to abide near
it on the moist slopes, to comfort the dickey birds
when they come to bathe and drink. On yonder bough
the song-thrush—mute just now—is performing his
toilette after having taken a refreshing dip. His nest
is somewhere near, and his mate is sitting close upon
her eggs. You may know that by his endeavours to
keep up an appearance. He will scarcely sing a note
until the eggs are hatched, and then he will trill away
as if life itself was to become a mere song, as it was to
him in his day& of gallant courtship. Will he sing for
mere joy or to teach his little ones, think you ? I give
it up. But here is a flower you know full well, the
wild Heartsease or Pansy, Viola tricolor. Here
another, the smallest Forget-me-not, but not the true
flower of that name. I t is otherwise known as the
early Scorpion Grass, Myosotis collina; the flowers are
small and of course bright blue. Here another, and
one well worth finding, the Butter-bur, Petasites
vulgaris. The flowers of this plant, like those of the
coltsfoot, appear in advance of the leaves; they are borne
on a peculiarly thick, fleshy stem, clothed with swelling
leaf-stalks, which appear to fail of their purpose in producing leaves, for they are leafless or terminated by
small apologies for leaves. The flowers are in a cluster
at the summit like a bunch of small, round, flesh

The Flowers of April.

41

coloured or pale pink buttons. The plant belongs to
the composite order and is therefore a relative—
though remote—of our friend the dandelion. As the
flowers change to tufts of feathery seeds the true
leaves appear, and soon attain to a greater size than
those of any other of our wild flowers. If, therefore,
you do not find that plant now by its flowers, you may
find it in your next ramble by its immense leaves,
which are heart-shaped at the base, and in general outline make an irregular triangle, broadest across the
base.
Once more let us try the woodlands for wild flowers.
The air in the green meadows and along the watercourses was cold and gusty. Now we are nearing the
wood we seem to have found a better climate; the air
is calm and warm, and mildly spicy with the diffused
odours of many flowers. William Cobbett, in his ' Rural
Rides/ has a passage on woodlands which might be
quoted ten thousand times without losing its freshness.
He says, " Woodland countries are interesting on many
accounts; not so much on account of their masses of
green leaves, as on account of the variety of sights and
sounds and incidents they afford. Even in winter the
coppices are beautiful to the eye, while they comfort
the mind with the idea of shelter and warmth. In
spring they change their hue from day to day during
two whole months, which is about the time from the
first appearance of the delicate leaves of the birch to the
full expansion of those of the ash; and, even before the
leaves come at all to intercept the view, what in the
vegetable creation is so delightful to behold as the bed

42

Field Flowers.

of a coppice bespangled with primroses and bluebells ?
The opening of the birch leaves is the signal for the
pheasant to begin to crow, for the blackbird to whistle,
and the thrush to sing; and just when the oak-buds
begin to look reddish, and not a day before, the whole
tribe of finches burst forth in songs from every bough,
while the lark, imitating them all, carries the joyous
sounds to the sky."
We shall find in the woods better flowers than the
garden can show us, and all of them grown in a more
skilful way. We put our tufts of narciss and squill
in open plots of common soil exposed to the sun, the
east wind, and the night frosts; but Nature plants hers
on the margins of the woods and in the hearts of
thickets amongst the mellow soil of decayed leaves, with
a sufficiency of last year's leaves to comfort them, and
with shade from the sun and shelter from the blast.
No wonder, then, that the sheets of bluebells that appear
to be dancing in companies along the woodside, and the
tufts of daffodils that assort themselves in conversational
groups, and the delicate fringes of oxalis that cluster
along the slopes where dead fern fronds tell us there
will be something else worth looking for later in the
season, are all more fresh, more brig;ht, more stout and
bonny than the best of. their several kinds the gardens
can show us.
The only British species of hyacinth is now in perfection, and almost every copse and woody field-path is
coloured with its nodding bright bluebells. This is the
Bluebell hyacinth, Hyacinthus non scriptus of Linnaeus,
Agraphis nutans of modern botanists. There is a story

The Flowers of April.

43

attaching to the name bestowed by Linnseus, as happens in
many other instances in which the master of scientific terminology called fancy and erudition to his aid in naming
animals and plants. The gardens can show us white
and pink varieties of the bluebell hyacinth, but they
are rarely met with wild.
Closely related to it is the Starch Grape Hyacinth,
Muscari racemosum, a sweet little thing blooming a
fortnight later, the flowers small and shaped like the oldfashioned watch-seals, wanting the recurved segments
of the hyacinth, the floral reminders of the curly locks
of Hyacinthus. The grape hyacinth is frequently grown
as a very choice, cool, greenhouse plant for the sake of
its early and delicate flowers. It may be found wild in
the fields about Caversham, Suffolk, where probably it
is but a runaway from the garden. There are three
species of narciss registered as natives of Britain, but
the Daffodil, Narcissus pseudo Narcissus, is the only
one which a wandering botanist of ordinary diligence is
likely to meet with. The daffodil is not uncommon in
moist woods in the southern and western parts of England, but is less plentiful than blackberries. The Poets'
Narciss, N. poeticus, appears occasionally as a wild plant
in sandy fields in the east of England, and is certainly
a rarity. Still more rare is the pale two-flowered
Narciss, N. biflorus, being met with in a few places
only in the south of England, and in the neighbourhood
of Dublin. There are some fifty or more species and
varieties grown in the garden, and that is the place to
study the family. What a pity we do not often meet
with collections of interesting hardy plants instead of

44

Field Flowers.

ephemeral flimsy things ten thousand times repeated in
the grounds that embellish our rural residences!
Fashion, however, was never much of a friend to
knowledge; hence, to follow the fashion does not
require any considerable amount of brains.
Now we have returned to the garden it may be well to
cut for dried specimens a few sprigs of currant and
gooseberry flowers, for these are true natives that still
linger as wildings in a few places. The tasteless
mountain currant, Kibes alpinum, may be found on the
mountainous lands of Yorkshire and Durham, and is
worth looking for because, being utterly worthless as a
fruit, it has never been grown as a garden plant. I t
very closely resembles the red currant of the garden.

FLOWEBS OP COMMON BED CUBEANT.

P L A T E 3.
n

Common Wood Sorrel.

Pasqne Flower.

*it-

Herb Robert.

Grass of Parnassus.

The Flowers of May.

45

CHAPTER VI.
THE FLOWERS OF MAY.

HAT particular flower was in the minds of those
who contributed somewhat to the founding of
the great American republic by naming a ship
that afterwards became famous, the "May Flower?"
A pretty query that, perhaps, for the speculative, but
a narrow one, for doubtless if we are to select a flower
and call it the May flower with emphasis, it must be
either the Buttercup or the Hawthorn. These are preeminently flowers of May. It would seem as if we had
been transported unawares to some other planet if we
did not see either of them in the course of the merry
month. This is indeed the " merry month" " when bees
from flower to flower do hum," and the gold of the
meadows and the snow of the hedge-rows help materially
in the excitement of its merriment. The fields are full
of buttercups, and those ambitious botanists who have
not yet made a beginning in systematic study may
advantageously begin now, for the buttercups have this
post of honour in the " natural system"—that they constitute the first order; and the student must master the
characteristics of the buttercups in respect of structure

46

Field Flowers.

and relationships, as the very first step towards a systematic knowledge of plants.
The many systems of botany may be reducible to two
for our present purpose. The Linnsean, or Artificial
system, is simply not a system of botany at all: it is a
system of botanical mnemonics. The classes and orders
are founded on the numbers of the stamens and pistils,
and on some few other purely mechanical or numerical
characteristics of the organs of reproduction. The
system itself may be mastered in an hour by any mind
of ordinary capacity ; but to apply it is another matter,
as the application consists in the practical study of
plants—a study in which the system affords absolutely
no help at all. Several of the Linnsean classes and orders
have better conditions of cohesion than mere mechanical
and numerical signs can afford, but that is, so far as the
system is concerned, an accident and not a merit.
Thus, in the Linnsean system nearly all the grasses
come together in Class I I I , Orders 1 and 2, having
three stamens and one or two pistils. But the swreetscented vernal grass has a place in Class I I , Order 2,
having two stamens and two pistils. There are many
exceptions of like nature, but the system must not be
blamed on their account, for it does not profess to do
more than find a pigeon-hole for every plant on the
face of the earth ; and if plants closely related get into
pigeon-holes far apart it cannot be helped, and at all
events we know where to find them whenever they are
needed for a better arrangement.
Now this better arrangement the Natural system
purposes to effect by grouping plants in orders, families.

The Flowers of May.

47

classes, and so forth, according to their obvious affinities, so far as those affinities can be understood. Thus,
to begin with, it is a sensible procedure to group all the
buttercups in one order, and, as above remarked, in all
the now-accepted natural systems, the Ranunculacece, the

LEAF OF COMMON BUTTEECUP {Ranunculus reopens).

buttercup or crowfoot tribe, constitute the first order,
and the one which therefore demands the first attention
of the student. In this order we find the buttercups,
the clematises, the anemones, the adonis, the globe
flowers, the hellebores, the columbines, the larkspurs,

48

Field Flowers.

the aconites, the pseonies, and a few other less iraportant
tribes. They are grouped under Ranunculacece because
of certain properties which they have in common.
Thus the flower of any one of them has usually a calyx
of five or six sepals; a corolla of five or six petals;
many stamens inserted on the receptacle; many ovaries;
watery (as distinct from milky) juice; acrid and poisonous properties. The poppy family comes very near to
the buttercup family, but you will find by observation

BACK VIEW OF BLOSSOM OP COMMON BTTTTEECTTP

{Ranunculus repens),
a, Petal; h, flower-cup, in five sections ; c, peduncle.

that, instead of figure 5 ruling the construction of the
flower, the figures 2 and 4 rule, the sepals being usually
two and the petals four, while, instead of a watery, they
exude when wounded a milky juice. You may judge
by these few particulars that in the study of the natural
system every separate fact becomes in its turn a key, a
royal road, a finger-post, or a magnetic telegraph to some
other fact, or perhaps to a bigger bundle of facts than

The Flowers of May >

49

the memory can catch hold of at a first effort, though
they may be most clearly brought before it by the aid
of principles that appear to be irrefragable. We must
not, however, consider it a fault of the natural system
that it offers us at every intellectual meal more than we
can hope to digest, because we might apply that principle to material things, and blame the butcher if he
ever sent a joint in which there was an ounce of meat
more than could be eaten at one sitting.

SECTION OF BUTTERCUP BLOSSOM.

a, petal; h, stamens; c, pistils; d, flower-stem, or
peduncle; e, receptacle.

We have many more species of crowfoots than the
beginner in botany would imagine. The most plentiful
of all is the Creeping Buttercup, Ranunculus repens,
the buttercup of the meadows. The leaves near the
root are marked with a dark spot in the centre, the
flowers are glossy and plentiful, and of the fullest tint
of yellow, the root is fibrous with a tuberous base, and
from the base of the stem go forth many creeping scions
which put out roots from the joints.
4

50

Field Flowers,

The following species of Ranunculus are worth hunting
for now. The Ivy-leaved crowfoot, Ranunculus hederacea, showing its first flowers late in the month in
marshy places. The leaves are kidney-shaped; the
flowers white; the stem puts out roots at almost every
joint. The water crowfoot, R. aquatilis, is well known;
but if you never once noticed it, you have but to look
out for its white flowers on rivers and ponds to make
sure of knowing it the first time you see it. The leaves
that lie on the surface of the water are boldly lobed;
those that are submerged are cut into fine divisions like
curly hairs of a dark green colour. The Floating-water
Crowfoot, R. fluitans, which resembles the last in habit,
but differs in having its leaves much elongated and
divided, and the stem very long and round. The
flowers are white. The Lesser Spear-wort, R. flammula,
another of the marsh inhabiting species, varies much
in character, but always produces many yellow flowers
and leaves that vary in form from linear to ovate, very
different indeed to the leaves of the meadow buttercups.
The wood crowfoot, Goldilocks, or Golden-haired buttercup, R. Auricomus, inhabits woods and shady places,
producing a few yellow flowers and two sorts of leaves:
those at the base roundish, heart-shaped, and thrice
divided; those on the stem cut into linear segments—
or say—resembling fingers. The Upright meadow
crow foot, R. acris, produces an abundance of beautiful
yellow flowers, which contribute largely now to the
splendour of the pastures. It is a true buttercup, with
fibrous root, a stem one to two feet high, and hairy
leaves deeply lobed and cut. The Creeping crowfoot,

The Flowers of May.

51

R. repens, is extremely common in pastures and waste
places; the radical leaves are usually stained black or

ELOWEE, OE BULBOUS-HOOTED EANUNCULUS, BACK VIEW.

a, petals of expanded blossoms; b, reflexed calyx, or
flower-cup j c, blossom half expanded, the flower-cup not
yet turned back; d, peduncle, or flower-stem; e, bract or
flower-leaf.

brown in the centre; the flowers are numerous and of
a beautiful golden colour. The Bulbous crowfoot^ R.

52

Field Flowers.

bulbosus, is the " buttercup" par excellence, the most
plentiful species of all. The root is usually of a grey
colour, and resembles in form and size a turnip radish.
The flowers are large and, of course, of a bright golden
yellow.
The anemones are, as noted above, members of the
ranunculaceous order, and very like a ranunculus, too,
in aspect, is the Yellow Wood Anemone, Anemone
ranunculoides, but the flower is starlike in form, and
resembles somewhat that of the Ficaria. This, however,
is a scarce species.
Very plentiful is the common Wood Anemone, A.
nemerosa, with its tripartite leaves and pretty white or
pale pink flowers.
The Blue Mountain Anemone, A. apennina, is a questionable native, and more likely to be found in the choice
garden where hardy plants are valued than on any of
our mountain ranges; but it is recorded to have been
found near Berkhampstead, Herts, and near Luton
Hoo in Bedfordshire.
The Pasque Flower, A.pulsatilla (Plate 2), is not plentiful, but somewhat widely distributed; so a search for
it on a chalk-down, or dry pasture, may not prove a mere
wild-goose chase. It may be instantly known by the
merest novice, so distinct is it in character; the flower
bell-shaped, and of a dull violet hue, the leaves all springing from the root, and cut into narrow segments. It is
but a step from these to the Pheasant's Eye, or Com
Adonis, Adonis autumnalis (Plate 1), which begins to
flower during May in the open fields, and will continue
flowering until October.

PLATE o.

Pvr&icadaL Orchis.

Spotted Pdlmate Orchis:

w >

Bee Ophrys.

Monkey Orchis.

The Flowers of May.

53

It is impossible to hunt in a good country now without
finding some of our native orchids, the characters of
which will perhaps equally delight and puzzle the young
botanist. On Plate 3 are representations of the monkey
Orchis, Orchis macra; the Pyramidal Orchis, 0. pyramidalis; the Bee Orchis, Ophrys apifera, an extremely
handsome imitative flower; and the Spotted Palmate
Orchis, Orchis maculata, the best known of all, and not
the least beautiful.
As we have near upon forty native species of orchids,
the beginner in field botany must not expect to make
acquaintance with the whole of them without exercising
much patience and perseverance. They haunt copses,
hedgerows, chalky downs, quarries, and railway cuttings.
A few of them are beautiful, many of them are curious,
all are interesting, and indeed there is not in these
islands a tribe of plants more worthy of attentive study,
both for their intrinsic merits as constituents of the
British Flora, and their relations to the more gorgeous
orchids of the tropics which we cultivate with so much
care in our hothouses.
If we were attracted to the copse by the orchids, we
might not deem it waste of time to gather a tuft of
Woodruff, Asperula odorata, both for its elegant clusters
of white flowers, and the delightful odour it will impart
to linen, books, &c, if placed amongst them while fresh
and there left to wither. Its whorled leaves afford a
sufficient character for readily determining it, independent of its neat little compact, wax-like, white flowers.
The orchids constitute a large group of plants, notable in popular estimation for the various resemblances

54

Field Flowers.

of their flowers to insects, birds, and even larger animals.
Ours are the very humblest of the family, but from
them we may learn useful lessons to aid us in the investigation of the whole race, or, at the very least, to
enhance our enjoyment of the lovely Dendrobes, Oncids,
and Cattleyas of the garden. Every orchid flower
consists hypothetically of fifteen parts, namely, three

LEAVES OE COMMON WOODEXJFE, ABEANGED IN A WHOEL.

sepals, three petals, three stamens, three pistils, and
three carpels. But the several genera exhibit every
imaginable variation of the hypothetical characters.
Thus, the labellum, or lip, which is in many instances
the largest, most highly-coloured, and most prominent
feature, is but one of the petals curiously modified.

The Flowers of May.

55

The three sepals are usually equal in size and shape,
and therefore easily determinable. Instead of three
stamens there is commonly only one produced, and this
is usually combined with one or more pistils, forming
what is called the column. In the noblest of the British
orchids, the Ladies' Slipper, Cypripedium calceolus, two
stamens are fully developed, and the third occurs in a
sterile condition between them forming the column.

COMMON PURPLE OR MEADOW ORCHIS.

1 1, pieces of the perianth, comprising both sepals and
petals; 2, pollen pouches; 3, stigma -, 4, spur; 5, twisted
ovary supporting blossom; 6, bract. 7, Waxy pollen
masses.

One of the commonest orchids in flower now is the
Common Purple or Meadow Orchis, 0. mascula, which
has a succulent stem tinged with purple, glossy green
leaves spotted with purple, and showy spikes of pale
lilac, or rich reddish purple flowers, the lip spotted with
white. They emit during the day a pleasing perfume,

56

Field Flowers.

but at night are too strongly scented to be agreeable.
Each flower rises from a twisted ovary which serves the
purpose of a peduncle, and has a long spur turning
upwards. The roots of this plant are as interesting as
the flowers. The plant springs from a tuber, which,
being rich in starch and the source of a highly nutritious
substance called " salep/' or " salop/' we may regard as

BOOT OP EARLY PURPLE ORCHIS.

a, exhausted tuber; h, fresh tuber; c, fibres of root.

a miniature potato. In common with most other tubers,
that from which the plant of the season is produced,
perishes as the plant attains maturity, but is succeeded
by another which grows on one side of it, and attains
its full size long before the exhausted tuber disappears.
One of the consequences of this mode of reproduction

The Flowers of May.

57

is that the plant of this season is about half an inch
distant from the spot whereon its parent of the previous
season grew, and *this, therefore, is a travelling plant.
The Dwarf Dark-winged Orchis, O. ustulata, is common
now on chalky pastures, and especially in the neighbourhood of Dover and Folkstone. It is a tiny thing with
deep green leaves, and a spike of flower buds that looks
as if burnt; but when the flowers expand, their large
white lips may be likened to laughing faces peeping out
from dark hoods. The Common Tway blade, Listera
ovata, has no beauty, but it is well worth looking
for in copses and on the shady borders of pastures. It
has two broad glossy green leaves three to four inches
long, placed halfway up the stem, and a number of insignificant yellowish-green flowers. A more remarkable
species is the Bird's-nest Orchid, Listera nidus-avis,
which has a weird aspect, and once seen will never be
forgotten. The flowers and the flower-stem are of a
dingy brown hue—a flower for witches much more than
fairies. The root repeats in a more complex form the
characters of the meadow orchis, consisting of tubers
which produce young plants in the following season.
The Military orchis, 0. militaris, is an inhabitant of
chalky hills, and common in the midland counties, wherever such hills occur. It closely resembles the monkey
orchis, but has more colour, the helmet being of a pale
ash colour, the tip rosy purple with spots.
Everywhere now we see upon shady banks the lovely
whiteflowersof the great Stitch wort, Stellaria holostea,
which may be called a large and grand edition of the
common chickweed with a capacity for climbing, for it

58

Field Flowers.

towers up amongst robuster plants by the aid of its
rough leaves and stems. At the slightest touch the
stem snaps asunder; hence it is often called, by country
people, " All-bones :" it also bears the name of " Cuckoo
flower/' indeed we have several so-called cuckoo-flowers,

BOOT OE BIED 7 S-NEST ORCHIS.

a, fibre-like tubers; b3 fibres or rootlets.

a sufficient answer to such as protest that vulgar names
are enough and Latin names more bother than they
are worth.
Mixed with it, perhaps, may be the
glorious flowers of the Garlic treacle mustard, Sisymbrium alliaria, a coarse plant with large, light-green,
heart-shaped leaves, acutely toothed; and terminal

The Flowers of May.

59

heads of small, white, cruciferous, flowers. If any
doubt about the plant when you find it, taste a bit ; you
will find it pungent, and the odour of garlic is unmistakeable if the plant is brushed over with the hand.
I n the field paths the Knot-gross, Polygonum aviculare, is now showing a few of its pretty pink flowers, a
member of the Persicaria order; a troublesome plant
to the farmer, but making some amends by its nutri-

COMMOK KNOT-GKASS MAGNIFIED.

A, side-view; a, perianth; b, membranous bracts. B, Front
view; a, triple styles. C, Style much magnified.

tious qualities and the partiality of sheep for it. On
old walls and on rocks may be found the Yellow Pumitary or Common Corydalis, Corydalis lutea, which is also
a favourite on the garden rockery and one of the best
known of garden plants. The Woodsorrel, Oocalis acetosella (Plate 2), haunts shady places, where it may be
quickly found by its beautiful tufts of delicate thricedivided leaves, like spiritual clover leaves, and delicate
white flowers which are marked with fine pencil-like
lines. Lastly, to complete the May garland, bear in

60

Field Flowers,

mind to hunt the woods well for the Herb Paris, Paris
quadrifolia, a most elegant and peculiar plant allied to
the Smilax, which you may as easily determine when
you find it by the aid of the subjoined figure, as by the
most elaborate description.
" The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo flowers,
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in the swamps and
hollows grey;
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o* the
May."
TENNYSON.

H E E B PARIS.

The Flowers of June.

61

CHAPTER VII.
THE FLOWERS OF J U N E .

S the summer advances the flowers change their
places like the stars in heaven. From the
fields and the copses they seem to be travelling
to the mountains, to the great lakes, to the rocky
wildernesses, and the lands deserted by all save them.
There are flowers in the meadow now whether the grass
be rising fat and flowery for the scythe, or be already
closely shorn, and the fragrant harvest lying in heaps
around, while a new green blade is springing, and needs
but one shower to bring forth again upon the even
mead the delicate greenness of the spring. Flowers,
indeed, are plentiful everywhere, but a host of elegant
things that lighted up the hedgerow and the meadow
have departed, but the heath lands and the rocks are
sweetly dotted with the fresh growth of ferns, and the
waters are newly fringed with their own peculiar forms
of vegetation.
Glancing again at the hedgerows and gardens we
shall find many flowers yet in their prime that belong
rather to May than June. Prominent amongst these
are several of the Borage tribe, renowned for the fine
tones of azure and amethyst in their flowers, and the

62

Field Flowers.

presence in sensible quantities of nitrous salts in their
juices. One well worth searching for, and as likely
to be found in the cottage garden as the field, is the
Lungwort, Pulmonaria officinalis (Plate 5), with spotted
leaves, lively pink buds, and bright blue flowers. A
near relation to it is the Common Gromwell, Lithospermum officinale, which haunts rubbish heaps and dry
banks. It grows a foot or more high, and has rough
leaves and dirty yellow flowers, which are succeeded by
nut-like seeds of a grey colour which deck the plant like
so many pearls. The Common Borage, Borago officinalis, with its splendid blue flowers, may be regarded as
the type of its race, and the student of botany would do
well to grow it in the garden, for indeed it is rarely met
with wild. It will be found that the flower of this plant
consists of a single petal cleft into five divisions forming
a proper corolla, with five stamens inserted into the
corolla, and alternate with its lobes. On the under side
is a calyx of five divisions. The corolla falls in one
piece, leaving the calyx complete to protect the seeds.
The Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare, is a robust and
rough relative of the borage, and one of the most
splendid of all our wild flowers. It attains a height of
two to three feet, the flower spike often measuring a
foot in length. The flowers occur in a succession of
short comb-like tufts, the buds bright pink, the flowers
pale blue, or full cobalt blue, or richest violet,—a
glorious assemblage of colours that compels us to pardon
the rusticity of the plant.
Less interesting, perhaps, but more useful than any
other member of the borage tribe, is the Comfrey,

The Flowers of June.

63

Symphytum officinale, which may be known by its large
light-green leaves, numerous bristles, and clusters of
white, yellow, or pink flowers, which remotely resemble
in form those of the Solomon's seal, though the comfrey
is very far removed from that plant, which, indeed,
belongs to the lilies. The comfrey affords excellent
food for milch kine, and is in many parts of Ireland
cultivated for that purpose. The moist places the
comfrey inhabits are the homes of two of the Forget-menots, which are also alliances of the borage. The true
Forget-me-not is the Water Scorpion Grass, Myosotis
palustris, a robust leafy plant which fringes the sluggish
river, and frequently chokes up the smaller streams, for
which it abundantly compensates by the beauty and
plentifulness of its pale blue flowers, which are as like
turquoises as any flowers can be. There are a few other
species of myosotis natives of Britain, not all of them
water plants, for some inhabit mountainous regions, and
others haunt the woods and the fields. The Creeping
Scorpion-grass, M. repens, though ranked as a species,
is only a poor variety of the last, met with in sour bogs.
The Tufted Scorpion-grass, M. ccespitosa, is not tufted,
but crowded in its growth. It very closely resembles
in leaves and flowers M. repens, and, indeed, is but a
variety of M. palustris. The Upright Wood Scorpion
grass, M. sylvatica, is distinct and beautiful, most
beautiful, with oblong leaves and large handsome blue
flowers. It is scarce, but may be looked for in dry
shady places. The Rock Scorpion grass, M. alpestris,
is an Alpine form of the last, with smaller flowers.
The early Field Scorpion grass, M. collina, is a tiny thing,

64

Field Flowers.

growing on walls and roofs. It has one distinguishing
quality, that the flower buds are never pink as in other
kinds. The Common Field Scorpion grass, M. arvensis,
resembles sylvatica, especially when growing in the shade,
but is never quite its equal in beauty. The Yellow and

THE TRUE FOEGET ME-NOT.

Blue Scorpion grass, M. versicolor, is the most distinct
of all for the simple reason that its flowers vary from
bright yellow to bright pink and bright blue. It is a
sweet little thing, by no means rare, and to be looked

PLATE 4.

Two-flowered Linneea.

Spotted Rock-rose.

Square-stalked St. John's Wort.

Hispid Mallow.

The Flowers of June.

65

for in dry as well as in moist places. The alkanets and
the bugloss, which also belong to the borage family,
may be better studied in the garden than the field, and
it will be a poor garden that does not contain some of
them.
Having returned to water scenes we may expect to
find the Buckbean, Menyanthes trifoliata (Plate 5), a
splendid aquatic with noble bright green leaves and
elegant pink flowers, which are charmingly fringed. As
for the lilies, we have but three, one of which is doubtful. The Great White Water Lily is Nymphcea alba of
the botanists; the Yellow Water Lily is Nuphar lutea.
If anywhere in our watery wanderings we should light
upon a bog, we might find the two-flowered Linnaea,
Linncea borealis (Plate 4), which Linnaeus adopted as a
crest for his coat of arms, and which, in his own fanciful way and in remembrance of his early struggles, he
considered as especially an emblem of himself, " a little
northern plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and
long overlooked."
It would be strange if in a June ramble we did not
somewhere meet with the honeysuckle, and it would be
fortunate to find the two-flowered Linnaea on the same
day, for they both belong to the same natural order,
the woodbine tribe. In this order are grouped the Elder
and Guelde Rose, in addition to the Linnaea and the
Honeysuckle, plants that differ immensely in their habits
and attractions. In all of them the corolla is in one piece
(monopetalous), but deeply cleft as if formed of four or
five separate petals; the calyx is attached to the ovary.
The fruit is usually a berry, bearing the calyx on its
5

66

Field Flowers.

summit, and the leaves are always opposite. Three
species of honeysuckle grow wild in Britain. The
Common "Woodbine or Honeysuckle of the woods,
Lonlcera peryclymenum, is too well known to need
description. It is one of the first trees to unfold its
leaves, and it wreathes the dark holly and the grey

MONOPETALOT7S FLOWER OE COMMON HONEYSUCKLE.

a, corolla; b, calyx; c, Stamens; d, pistil.

branches of the elm all the summer long with its elegant wreaths of flowers. I t is the "woodbine" of
Shakespeare, and with him the companion of the wild
rose.
" I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet blows,
Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses and with eglantine."

The Flowers of June.

67

Chaucer refers to the same plants under the names
woodbine and eglantine; but Milton uses "twisted
eglantine " for the sweet brier rose. The dull red berries
of the plant have a very poisonous look late in the
summer, when they become numerous; they are, however, equally harmless and useless. The Perfoliate
""oney suckle, L. cuprifolium, is equally beautiful, but
i^e flowers are paler in colour and the berries are of a
bright orange colour. When met with, this may be

BLOSSOM OF LYCHNIS,

PETAL OP LYCHNIS.

PISTIL OF LYCHNIS.

WITH PISTILS ONLY.
a, petal; b, pistils;
c, calyx.

a, limb; b, claw.

a, ovary; b, styles.
c, receptacle.

distinguished by the twofold leaf, or, as the botanist
would say, connate leaves immediately beneath the
flowers. This belongs to the woods of the east coast;
suggesting the probability of its having been introduced
from Northern Europe. The Fly Honeysuckle, L.
ocylosteum, is still more scarce. It has egg-shaped

68

Field Flowers.

downy leaves and very small pale yellow flowers, which
are quite destitute of fragrance.
Amongst the more showy plants of the month due
mention must be made of the White Campion, Lychnis
dioica or L. vespertina, which, though usually white,
yet varies in colour considerably. It is not only conspicuous by its bold habit and beauty, but is an extremely interesting plant, because hypothetically as a
member of the carnation family, the flowers should
always contain both stamens and pistils; whereas we
usually find the stamens in one flower and the pistils in
another. In the language of botany the plant is dioecious. Occasionally, however, both stamens and pistils
occur in the same flower.
The lychnis may be allowed to introduce us to the
carnation family at large, and it is quite time to hunt for
wild pinks, catchflies, corn-cockles, pearl-worts, sandworts, and stitchworts, though many of them will be
bright with flowers until September. The carnations
and pinks the florists cultivate are, generally speaking,
double flowers, which the botanists have the temerity to
call " monsters," in return for which compliment to
their favourites the florists pretend that all the beautiful flowers belong to themselves and the ugly ones to
the botanists. Well, the Wild Clove, Dianthus caryophyllus, belongs to the botanists, certainly, and they
need not be ashamed of it on the score of beauty; the
florists, with all their grand possessions, cannot beat it.
I t is the clove gilliflower or July flower of the old
gardeners, and doubtless is the parent of the carnation
and picotees of the garden. It is probably not a true

The Flowers of June.

69

native, but has found its way here from the continent,
the southern slopes of the Alps being, without doubt,
its original home. Here it is almost confined to the
south-eastern parts of England, where it seeks out for
itself the grim castles and crumbling walls of the oldest
cities, the keep of Rochester Castle having long been
famous amongst English botanists for this glorious
wilding and its boon companion the snapdragon. The
Chedder or Mountain Pink, D. caesius, is a rare gem met
with on the cliffs at Cheddar in Somerset, one of the
best possible resorts for a botanical tourist. I t is a
sweet little gem of a cheerful pink colour. The Soapwort, Saponaria officinalis; the Corn-cockle, Agrostemma githago; and the stemless Catchfly, Silene
acaulis, may be found in the garden, perhaps, if not in
the field. But we shall scarcely find, under the care of
the cultivator, that somewhat coarse but handsome
plant, the Bladder Campion, Silene inflata, which the
children might have been seen eating the leaves of a
month ago, when they tasted like green peas. This
may be known by its pouch-like calyx. The Ragged
Robin or Cuckoo-flower, Lychnis flos cuculi, you are so
likely to know without help from books, that it is
mentioned here only because its beauty forbids
silence.
But let us look for humbler relations of the carnation than these. The great Stitchwort or Satin
flower, Stellaria holostea, has been already referred to
as one of the gems of the hedgerow. On the dry
pastures and heaths we may find its poor relation, the
little Stitchwort, S. graminea, which has very narrow

70

Field Flowers.

leaves and pretty white, satiny flowers. In the bog is
another, the Bog Stitchwort, S. uliginosa, with broad
leaves and tiny insignificant flowers. The Sandworts
are a numerous and puzzling family, but one of their
number may be found almost anywhere on the seacoast, for it loves the rock, the drifted sand, and the
salt marsh alike, but it nowhere thrives except near the
sea. This is the sea-side Sandwort or sea-side Alsine,
Arenaria marina, or Spergularia marina. The stems
are prostrate, the leaves semi-cylindrical, with accompanying white chaffy stipules, the flowers lilac and
purple. You may pass over carpets of this pretty plant
in rambling amongst the rocks, and yet know nothing
of its beauty, for the flowers close soon after noon on
dull days and are never open after 4 p.m. The Purple
Alsine, Arenaria rubra, is a good imitation of the seaside alsine, but a smaller and less succulent plant, not
at all in love with the sea, for it grows on sand and gravel
almost everywhere. They are probably two forms of
the same species. Closely allied to the arenarias and
stellarias are the Mouse-ear Chickweeds, the handsomest
of which is the Field Chickweed, Cerastium arvense, a
plentiful plant in a few districts, usually found on
sandy banks in the full sun. It is so like the great
stitchwort that it may be easily mistaken for it, but
on comparison will be found to differ in many particulars, not the least important being the darker colour
of its leaves, those of the great stitchwort being of a
most delicate light green. The pretty silvery-leaved
plant employed for edging flower-beds, Cerastium tomentosum, the " serastum" of the rustic who has picked up a

The Flowers of June.

71

few garden names, is the prettiest of all the family, and
a good type of them too when allowed to become half
wild and produce, in spring, its exquisitely finished white
satin flowers. It is a native of Southern Europe.
More humble than all these, but equally worthy of
notice, are those little tufty moss-like plants, the
spurreys, of which we shall select four for special
notice. For the first go and search at the foot of an
old brick wall, or on a damp cinder-heap, or amongst a
lot of plants in flower-pots, for a mossy tuft of bluishgreen vegetation, dotted with tiny grey flowers. It
is the Procumbent Pearlwort, Sagina procumhens,

PROCUMBENT PEARLWORT.

an Alpine plant, which condescends to make itself at
home anywhere, and usually prefers to clothe with its
glossy-green mossy cushions spots where no other
plant could grow. In warm spots on sand and brick it
usually remains green all the winter, but is best worth
finding while in flower.
A plant very closely resembling it, but quite distinct
and far more beautiful, is the Pearlwort Spurrey, Spergula saginoides, which occurs in plenty on the Scottish

72

Field Flowers.

highlands, and might be sought with some hope of
success on Dartmoor, and even on the Bagshot sand. But
failing all means of obtaining wild specimens, you may
secure tame ones by cultivating the so-called Spergula
pilifera of gardens, which is merely a large flowering
variety of the Pearlwort Spurrey, introduced to
English gardens in 1859 as a substitute for grass on
J awns. It never acquired any solid popularity, and yet
it really does form, when properly managed, the most
beautiful lawn imaginable; bright as the best grass
newly mown, and soft to the foot as the most luxuriant
growth of moss. This plant is of finer texture than the
last, the leaves are narrower, and have a more delicate
bristle-like point, and instead of tiny grey flowers, it produces comparatively large flowers of the purest white. A
large patch of it in full bloom is as pretty a sight as
one need wish to see in a day's march. You will have
no difficulty, after having studied chickweeds, and
sandworts, and stitchworts, in determining that these
two plants belong to the carnation tribe, and hence
the natural system recognises them as near relations.
Yet, because of a little disagreement in their constitutional arithmetic, they are separated by the Linnsean
system by six classes., so that to cite only one example
of results, if we refer to Deakin's ' Florigraphia
Britannica' for descriptions of them, we find the
sagina in the middle of the first volume, and the
spergula in the middle of the second. The first belongs to Class IV, Order I I I , having four stamens
and four pistils. The second belongs to Class X,
Order IV^ having ten stamens and five pistils.

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73

There are three other species of spurrey, and two
other species of pearlwort. The Corn Spurrey, S.
arvensis, is known in Norfolk as the " pick-purse,"
being regarded as an injurious weed, whereas, in truth,
it is highly nutritive, and in Holland and Germany
is frequently sown with corn in order that there
may be plenty of it on the land the following season,
when the cattle are turned out on the stubble. The
Knotted Spurrey, S. nodosa, grows in marshy soils,
preferring sandy spots. It is of a wiry straggling
habit, and produces large white flowers.
A host of plants will have come under observation
while the foregoing studies were in progress. Several of
the yarrows may have been found in flower, the most

PEAELWORT SPTTRREY.

(The detached flowers are natural size.)

common being the Common Milfoil, Achillea millefolium,
a valuable pasture plant, and by no means valueless in
the garden, for it answers well for turfing hot sandy

74

Field Flowers.

banks where grass is sure to be soon burnt up in summer.
The " Rosy Yarrow " of the garden border is a variety
of the same plant, and one so rare in its beauty, though
commonest of the common, that its flowers may be as
fairly likened to jewelry as any other flowers that
have been so honoured. The wild yarrow is usually

SNEEZEWORT YARROW.

white, but it is by no means uncommon to meet with
many shades of flesh and pale pink where the plant
grows in plenty. Another pretty kind is the Woolly
Yellow Milfoil, A. tomentosa, a pretty little Alpine
species, with downy leaves and fine tufts of golden yellow

The Flowers of June.

75

flowers. The favourite British Y arrow of the garden—if
the rosy yarrow does not happen to be the favourite—
is the Sneezewort Yarrow, A. ptarmica, with snowy
white flowers, and extremely elegant leaves, which
grow in a tuft close to the ground, and being finely
cut, and of a pleasing tint of green, often cause the
plant to be mistaken, when not in flower, for a fern,
which it fairly resembles. The double flowering variety
belongs especially to the garden. I t thrives best in a
moist shady spot, but will grow almost anywhere. The
yarrows belong to the composite order, and have the
bitter, pungent, and peculiar odour by which their
near relatives the camomiles and feverfews are distinguished.
Many geraniums or crane's-bills, in addition to the
Herb Robert already noticed, will attract our attention
during the sunny month of June. A splendid Alpine
species, the Bloody Crane's-bill, Geranium sanguineum,
has many orbicular or kidney-shaped leaves, and a few
large solitary flowers of a fine purplish-crimson colour.
This you will find in every garden where good hardy
plants have the encouragement they deserve. The Dusky
Crane's-bill, G. phoeum, is a strong growing plant, with
flowers of a deep, dingy, purplish-black colour.
It
may be found wild in mountainous woods, and in the
garden where such plants are prized. The Wood
Crane's-bill, G. sylvaticum, grows two to three feet high,
with large deeply lobed leaves and flowers growing in
pairs, in large clusters at the summit of the plant;
they are of a fine light purple colour, pencilled with
dark lines. This may be distinguished from all other

76

Field Flowers.

British geraniums by the hairs on the stems of the
stamens, or in other words, by its ciliated filaments.
The Blue Meadow Crane's-bill, G. pratense, grows in
moist rich pastures in mountainous districts ; the leaves
are deeply cut, the flowers grow in pairs, they are of a
fine blue colour. There is no wild plant to surpass

LEAE OE COMMON DOVE'S-EOOT

CRANE'S-BILL.

PINNATED LEAE OF VETCH.
a,

tendrils.

this in beauty when it attains its highest development,
but it must have shade and a rich soil to show forth
its full beauty. The Dove's-foot Crane's-bill, G. molle,
may be known by the roundish leaves which grow next
the root, and deeply notched petals of a pinkish-purple

The Flowers of June.

77

colour, though in many of its characters it resembles
the small-flowered Crane's-bill, G. pusillum, and the
Round-leaved Crane's-bill, G. rotundifolium.
A common plant on dry wastes and fallow fields is
the jagged-leaved Crane's-bill, G. dissectum, the leaves
of which are cut into longer and narrower segments
than those of any other species, with the exception of
the one next to be mentioned. The flowers are few,
produced in pairs at the top of the plant; they are of
a pleasing pink colour usually, but vary considerably, as
soil and situation affect them. The Long-stalked Crane'sbill, G. columbinum, is like the last in its deeply cut
leaves, but the flowers are larger, and borne on peculiarly long stalks, which give the plant a light wiry
appearance, in which it differs from all other species.
The StorkVbills are the close allies of the Crane's-bills;
they bear smaller flowers, and the fruit has a longer,
narrower, and harder beak.
The Hemlock-leaved
StorkVbill, Erodium cicutarium, is the most common.
It is a coarse plant.
By this time, too, the furze and broom have had
their share of our admiration, if they have had but
little of our attention. They represent the great
national order of Papilionaceous plants, so named because of the resemblance of their flowers to butterflies.
They are also called Fabaceous because of the peculiar
bean-like pods in which their seeds are produced,
"faba" being the Latin for a bean. The fabaceous
plants rank second only to the grasses in value as
ministrants to the economy of animal life, for they
produce food for man and beast in vast abundance, and

78

Field Flowers.

generally speaking, the aliments derived from this
family are of the highest character in point of nourishing power, all of them contributing largely to the
nourishment, not only of the muscular and bony framework, but in a peculiar degree also to the nervous
system, owing to their richness in nitrogen and salts
of phosphorus. In a majority of cases the fabaceous
or leguminous plants have pinnated leaves, that is to
say, each separate leaf consists of a series of symmetrical
divisions united by a common stem. In the laburnum,
locust, and acacia trees, we find the leaves to be formed
on the same plan as in the commonest vetch, for these
are all members of the Leguminosse; but in the vetch
the pinnated leaf terminates in a tendril, whereas in all
the trees of the family the leaves are destitute of
tendrils. An interesting exception occurs in the case
of the Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum, which you may
find in many a good garden; in this case the leaves
are entire and orbicular, but the pretty pink flowers
are as like those of a pea as are those of the Common
Rest Harrow, Ononis arvensis, a pretty low-growing
thorny shrub, with rosy-pink flowers, which you may
now find on many heath lands and sandy waysides.
The Common Broom, Cytisus scoparius, may be studied
with advantage as a representative plant. The leaves
are in threes, and remotely resemble those of the clover,
which also belongs to this family. The flowers are
formed, like those of the pea, with five petals, so disposed as to serve for the image of a butterfly. The
uppermost constitutes what is called the vexillum or
banner, those on each side are the wings, and the lower-

The Flowers of June.

79

most pair the keel. The petals must be stripped off for
the full display of the stamens and pistil, which will be
found as represented in the figure, the filaments of the
stamens being all united at the base. Fertilisation is
effected by insect agency, and probably in this way—a bee
enters the flower in search of honey, and comes out well
dusted with pollen. The stigma of the flower entered
is perhaps not so ripe as the stamens in the same flower,
and if the bee leaves a dust of pollen on it, no effect is

COMMON BKOOM.

a a, petals; b, calyx; c9 stamens;
d, pistil.

CALYX AND ESSENTIAL OEGANS

OP COMMON BROOM.
a, calyx; b, stamens; c, curved
style.

produced, but the next flower the bee enters may be
ready to receive the pollen, and whatever the bee leaves
upon it in bustling in after honey takes effect, and
immediately afterwards the pod begins to grow. In
due time the bush is, by the aid of such agencies,
covered with legumes or pods, bearing seeds upon the
upper seam of the valves destined to be scattered when
ripe by the cracking of the dry legume in the heat of

80

Field Flowers.

the sun. While yet in a fresh green state, the remains
of the calyx may be found with the dried filaments of the
stamens at the base, and the remains of the stigma at
the point of the pod. The common garden pea carries
the remains of the stigma at the point of the pod, like
a chaffy scale, in just the same way.
An immense number of papilionaceous plants are
now in flower; we must mention very few. The Com-

COMMON BEOOM.

a, legume, or pod; b, persistent calyx; c, remains of
stamens; d, remains of stigma.

mon Furze, Ulex Europceus, you know, but perhaps
you do not the pretty little Dwarf Furze, U. nanus, a
very spiny small edition of it, which, from the end of
this month until Christmas, will light up many of our
heaths and moors with its brilliant yellow flowers.
" Not know it/' you exclaim in astonishment. Well,

The Flowers of June.

81

perhaps you do not know it as distinct from the whin
of the hedgerow and the sandy waste. Now here is
one character by which to distinguish this plant from
the common furze—the flower stalks are accompanied
with bracts wider than themselves ; in the dwarf furze
the bracts are the same width as the flower stalks,
moreover the dwarf furze is hairy, the spines and stems
are hairy, but in the other smooth. A pretty broom
to look for now on mossy lands is the Needle Green weed, or Petty Whin, Genista anglica, a very spiny
wiry plant, with pretty tufts of small yellow flowers,
which crown it as with golden garlands. The Medick
or Lucerne, Medicago sativa, you may find upon the
farm lands if it does not occur in your rambles far
a-field. Its purple flowers cause a great mass of it to
present a beautiful feature in the landscape, especially
when it occurs in the same scene with acres of yellow
mustard and crimson clover. The Yellow Melilot,
which is far from common, though by no means scarce
in many parts of Cambridgeshire, is well worth hunting
for, as, indeed, it is well worth growing in the garden.
The spike of flowers may be likened to a brush or
comb, as they all turn one way, and form a close fringe
of delicate yellow tubes, in which the characteristic
features of papilionaceous flowers may be easily traced
out. It is to this plant, in part at least, that Gruyere
cheese is indebted for its peculiar flavour, the melilot
being abundant in the pasturage of Gruyere.
One of the most interesting trefoils is the Hare'sfoot, Trifolium arvense, with heads like velvet; the
colour of the flowers pale pink, peeping prettily out of
6

82

Field Flowers.

a soft grey down. It loves the neighbourhood of the
sea, and you may make sure of finding it on the pastures of Kent, especially near Sandgate. A very pretty
kind is the Soft-knotted Trefoil, T. striatum, with distinct, small, rounded leaves, and downy heads of
reddish-purple flowers. The Strawberry-headed Trefoil, T. fragiferum, is really like a strawberry, the
head rounded, and consisting of little purplish-red
flowers, set amongst conspicuous green calyces. Look
for it in the salt marshes of Kent and Essex. Salt
marshes are capital hunting grounds, where you may
have to hunt oxen as well as flowers, or perhaps the
oxen, if you are a trifle too timid, will hunt you. The
Lesser Yellow Trefoil, T. minus, is an annual plant,
quite common in good pastures. It has pretty little
heads of yellow flowers.
Prom the trefoils proper we pass to the BirdVfoot
Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus, with, flowers most distinctly
papilionaceous, and remotely resembling those of the
laburnum; the seed pods being long and narrow, and
in groups of threes, like the foot of a bird. It is well
known in gardens, and one of the best of rockery
plants. Next the Vetches, and trouble enough they
will give you. The Sweet-milk Vetch, Astragalus
glycophyllus, is a bold and handsome plant, with larger
leaves than we generally meet with amongst the herbaceous members of the pea tribe. The plant is sometimes mistaken for a young Eobinia, but it may be
distinguished from anything of the kind by its prostrate
stem and large dull yellow flowers. The loveliest of
the vetches is the Wood Vetch, Vicia sylvatica, which

The Flowers of June.

83

adorns the hedgerows in mountainous woody districts
all the summer long, with garlands of blush flowers of
the most elegant character. More common, indeed,,
most common, is the splendid Tufted Vetch, V. cracca,
which loves to climb through the tangled rough herbage
of the hedge, to toss out its showy tufts of purplishblue flowers at the very summit, and mixes in the
midst of brambles and rest harrows on the plain, to
adorn them all with flowers that seem to belong to
them, but which we need not to be told are not theirs.
In the north the Bitter Wood Vetch, V. orobus, with
cream-coloured flowers takes its place, and grows in
the same way. The Common Vetch or Tare, V.sativa,
may be seen more often on the farm, and in the market
cart, than as a wilding, and for that very reason, perhaps, on the principle that familiarity breeds contempt,
it is one of the last of our native plants with which
a field botanist makes a thorough acquaintance.
Equally valuable is the Bush Vetch, V. septum; its
dull blue or pink flowers are extremely common in
hedgerows, and on the skirts of plantations. It forms
a distinct dull green bush with small clusters of flowers,
which are followed by an immense number of pods.
The leaflets are egg-shaped or elliptic, the pods smooth.
It is the least attractive of all the vetches.
The most common of the wild peas is the Meadow
Vetchling, Lathyrus pratensis, which has large yellow
flowers borne on slender stems, high up amidst brake
and bush, above which it climbs by the help of its
tendrils. The Everlasting Pea, L. latifolius, is rarely met
with wild, and is probably not a native, though to

84

Field Flowers.

be found in woods in Cumberland and Worcestershire.
The reader does not need to be told that it is a favourite
in the garden, and one of the most beautiful and
various of hardy plants known. The Seaside Pea,
L. maritimus, is rare, and probably not a native. It
is well worth finding, both for its beauty and the
story of its appearing in great plenty in a season of

ELOWEES OE MEADOW VETCHLING-.

a a, petals; b b, calyx; c c, pedicles; d, peduncle.

dearth, and thus helping to mitigate the effects of a
general scarcity. Tt has a very distinct leafage, and
roundish heads of purple flowers. It may be found
at several stations on the eastern coast of England, and
usually on rocky sites far away from either mud or
sand. Many more of this great family are flowering
now, and scarcely one that is not worth a long journey

The Flowers of June.

85

to obtain it, and a little patience to determine its name
and learn its fame.
Now for the grasses, which are everywhere flowering abundantly. They gleam in the meadow like
silver feathers; they sparkle amid the herbage of
tangled hollows with their whitish, yellowish, reddish,
cloudy sprays of indeterminable beauty; they make
the dusty highway cheerful with their humble imitations of oats, and rye, and barley, and they climb to
the tops of the old walls, and to every lodge on the
old tower, and make greybeards, and hoary seams, and
strange scars and splashes on the masonry, to indicate
that time despises architectural lines, and can deface
them all by the aid of grains of dust that float on the
air unseen. One little grass seed wafted to the top
of the turret shall suffice, in the course of years, to
clothe the whole of some vast ruin with a green tracery
of loveliest vegetation, the roots of which shall eat
into its very heart, and cause its ultimate return to
the dust, out of which, as proud art directed, it originally
sprung.
The grasses constitute a great natural order, which
bears the collective designation Graminacea.
This
order includes all the grasses commonly recognised
as such, together with all the grain-producing plants,
such as wheat, rice, maize, millet, sugar-cane, &c.
They all bear true flowers, which are destitute of proper
corollas, and these flowers are succeeded by seeds,
which more or less resemble barley, oats, or wheat,
except it may be in size and colour, and these seeds
usually contain a large amount of nourishing farina,

86

Field Flowers.

which renders them valuable as food to man or to cattle,
or to the little singing birds that trust themselves to
God for all in all. In their roots they are not, generally speaking, peculiar, but in their stems and leaves
they present unique characters. The stems are cylindrical (never triangular), usually hollow, always jointed,
with a leaf at each joint, the leaf proceeding from a
split sheath, at the summit of which there is attached
a leafy appendage, called a ligule. The grasses grow
from within, and belong therefore to the great department of the vegetable kingdom to which botanists
apply the collective term " endogens,-" as distinct from
exogens or outside growers, this last division comprehending the larger portion of all the flowering plants
known, and of trees especially.
The principal associates of the grasses as endogens
are palms, orchids, and lilies, all of which produce
flowers, in most cases beautiful, but always in some
respects different in plan from the flowers of exogens.
We have now to do with the flowers of the grasses, the
structure of which should be clearly understood by
any one who entertains a hope of enjoying the pursuit
of field botany. Putting aside exceptional cases it may
be said that the flowers of grasses always contain
stamens and pistils, or that the stamens are in one set
of flowers and the pistils in another. A splendid example
of the separation of the sexes occurs in the maize or
Indian corn. The femaleflowersare produced at the joints
on the incipient cobs, and the males in the form of a tuft
of silken threads, or, indeed, more like spun glass at the
top of the plant, " the plumes of Mondamin." The

The Flowers of June.

87

stamens and pistils are usually enclosed in chaffy husks
or glumes, which constitute the most conspicuous
feature of the infioresence. These glumes or chaffy
scales, of which every flower (where glumes are present)
has two, are usually dissimilar and are called glumellas ;
on the outer one is produced the awn or bristle which
characterises the flowers of some of the grasses.
Every separate group of flowers forms what is called a

ELOKET or MELIC GTtASS,
showing feathery
stigmas,

A, Spikelet of Brome Grass; a a, glumes
or involucre, inclosing grass florets, B, Single floret of Brome Grass; d, glumellse, or
perianth ; c, stamens; e, awn.

spikelet, and every aggregate of spikelets constitutes the
spike or panicle.
There are forty-four genera of British grasses and
about 120 species. Very many are so nearly alike that
no beginner could hope to distinguish them even were
they to be met with in his earliest rambles, but the
beginner may, nevertheless, find a great many and very

88

Field Flowers.

quickly understand them sufficiently to hunger for
knowledge of more.
The sweet-scented Vernal-grass, Anthoxanthum odor aturn, is one of the most abundant and useful of the
family, contributing largely both to the fragrance and
nourishing properties of good hay. It flowers as early
as April and produces ripe seeds in June. It forms
what may be called a quite common-looking panicle of
a pale dingy-green colour, from every flower of which
two stamens protrude in a very characteristic manner.
The Fox-tail grasses have close dense spikes, which may
be likened to tails, though not of foxes. The commonest
of them is the Meadow Fox-tail, Alopecurus pratensis,
which may be found in almost every good pasture.
The Canary grass, Phalaris canariensis, may often be
found on rubbish heaps, whither it has been conveyed in
the emptyings of a bird cage. The panicle is large and
almost globose, of a pale straw colour. The Reed
Canary grass, P. arundinacea, produces a loose spike and
the plant is extremely robust, growing usually by the
sides of rivers. The common variegated grass of our
gardens, the " gardener's garters" or " ribbon grass/' is
a variety of this native water grass, and its flowers therefore may serve to aid in the identification of the species
when met with. The Mat weed or Sea Reed, Ammophila arundinacea, may be seen on the sea coast in
great masses binding drifting sands, and thus preventing the dreadful injury they might inflict upon the
inland countries when blown by storms towards the
land. Its companions in this beneficent work are the
Lyme grass, Elymus arenarius, a bold habited grass

The Flowers of June.

89

with broad, arching, glaucous leaves; and the Sea-sedge,
Carex arenaria. The Cat's-tail grass, Phleum pra-

HARE'S-EOOT GRASS,

HARE'S-EOOT GRASS.

Complete plant, reduced.

Flower spike, natural size.

tense, may be found in almost every meadow, and is
one of the most valuable hay grasses, though coarse
and little cared for by cattle when growing. It pro-

90

Field Flowers.

duces a long close spike, which sufficiently agrees with
its name to aid in its identification. The Hare's-foot
grass, Lagurus ovatus, is quite a beauty, and I present
you with a miniature of the complete plant as well as a
figure of a flower spike natural size. It is scarce,
being usually only found as a British plant on sandy
spots in Guernsey, but it is much grown in gardens,
both to adorn the rockery while living and to assist in
the formation of winter boquets when dried.
The Millet grass, Milium effusum, is very distinct.
If you can imagine a ghostly bit of wire work intended

SPREADING- SILKY B E N ! GRASS.

to represent a succession of umbrella ribs with one
stem piercing the whole, you may, when you meet with
it, be able to effect an identification. Wretched comparison—suffice that this is a daddy longleg sort of a
grass that I must not say another word about. The

The Flowers of June,

91

Feather grass, Slipa pennata, you are not likely to find
wild, but as you cannot do without its handsome
feathery plume for winter bouquets, plant it in the
garden and thus enlarge your field. The Fine Bent
grass or Black Quintal e (or Twitch), Agrostis vulgaris,
bears most delicate, purplish spikelets on hair-like
stems that tremble to every passing breeze.
Another pretty thing is the Silky Bent, A. spicaventi, with loose light panicle of pink or pale green hue,
shining like silk, and bending most elegantly to the
passing breeze. It is plentiful in moist fat lands near

TTJFTED-HAIE G-BASS.

EEE1> MEADOW G-EASS.

London. The Tufted Hair-grass, Aira ccespitosa, is
another delicate beauty, commonly inhabiting ditches
and other like damp spots, and very plentiful near
London. The flower spikes may be likened to wirework dotted with beads to form a loose pyramidal

92

Field Floivers.

pattern. The Purple Molinia, Molinia ccerula, merits
notice as the darkest coloured of all our grasses, the
colour of the glumes being dark green with reddened
tinge of blue, and the large anthers are of a purple
colour. In form it is poor, the spikelets being on a long
straight, wire-like stem, few and distant. The Soft
Meadow grass, Holcus lanatus, may be found wherever
a grass of any kind can live; and you may know it by
its large and beautiful soft panicle of numerous small
spikelets of a pinkish-purple colour, and its downy
leaves. The flowering of this grass is in many districts
the signal to begin hay-making.
The Reed Meadow grass, Poa aquatica, grows on
tfie margin of almost every river in the land, and you
must make acquaintance with it or, as a botanist, be
accounted " nowhere" in the grasses. It bears a noble
plume above its broad bright green leaves, and makes a
bonny show in the shallows when in flower. As for the
other poas, fifteen in number, we had best slide past all
save one, and that one the Rough Meadow grass, Poa
trivialiSy is one of the very best for garden lawns in the
vicinity of towns, and therefore well worth knowing.
It is of slender make, with roughish stem, the panicle
green, much branched, the stems of the spikelets long
and wiry, the leaves taper pointed.
There are three species (so-called) of Quaking grass,
and they are, perhaps, the loveliest of all the grasses
that find their way into the garden. The Great
Quaking grass, Briza maxima, is nothing other than a
robust form of the Common Quaking grass, Briza
•,nedia} and this being the queen of British grasses, we

The Flowers of June.

93

present a portrait of her face life-size. The Cocksfoot
Grass, Dactylis glomerata, you will soon learn to distinguish as a wild plant by observation of the low,

PANICLE OF COMMON QUAKING- GRASS (NATURAL SIZE).

tufted, broad-leaved, variegated grass of the same name
grown in gardens.
The Crested Dogstail, Cynosurus cristatus, is peculiarly distinct, with rigid, hard-looking spike of a lilac

94

Field Flowers.

hue. I t grows everywhere, and is everywhere welcome
for the valuable herbage it affords.
Sheep's Fescue, Festuca ovina, is a peculiarly fineleaved grass growing in tufts on sandy soils, where it
constitutes a most elegant rich green herbage. The
panicles are unattractive. It varies much in character in
different localities, and a blue-leaved variety is grown
in gardens. I n Greenwich Park three or four varieties
may be found, one of them having leaves as fine as
hairs. On heath lands a viviparous form of this grass

COMMON QUAKING- GEASS.

may often be met with. This variety does not produce
flowers. Everywhere, by the sides of dusty roads, and
on old brick walls and chimney-stacks, a rather ugly,
short, sturdy, barley-like grass will be found, but
scarcely ever does the vagrant trespass on the meadows
It is the Wall Barley, or Way Bennet, Hordeum muri-

The Flowers of June.

95

num. This is the grass that children put up their
sleeves to vary the monotony of school-work.

SHEEP'S FESCUE, VIVIPAROUS POEM.

.Finally, to dispose of the grasses, mention must be

96

Field Flowers.

made of the Darnel, Lolium ternulentum, which is by
no means common, though plentiful in some localities.
The leaves are flat and rough on the upper side. The
stem rises two or three feet high, bearing two rows of
small spikelets, each containing about six flowers bearing
hair-like awns. The plant attains a great size, and
when growing amongst corn may be readily distinguished from other grasses. It has quite a literary
fame as the " only poisonous grass/' but in truth it is
no more poisonous than a mushroom, which most of us
are prepared to eat at any time without the shadow of a
fear.
The garden is capable of affording immense aid in the
study of the grasses, and the collections which are
grown as ornamental plants comprise a number of
British species which, as a rule, are scarce as wild
plants. They are valuable, too, for winter bouquets,
and far more pretty in their natural colours than dyed,
as we see them in the shops. As for variety, it is
truly wonderful that so simple a type should be capable
of the variations which we find in this great family.
What a contrast, for example, does the little quaking
grass afford to the great silvery plumes of the American
Pampas grass, Gynerium argenteum, which adorns our
gardens with its fountain-like herbage and gleaming
silvery feathers.

~ >S3$"ISsiP^S3 SSfe
*

The Flowers of July.

97

CHAPTER V I I I .
THE FLOWERS OF JULY.

1HE shifting of the colours from the woodlands
and hedgerows to the watersides and hill tops,
I which we noticed as characteristic of June,
is equally noticeable now, and will become more and
more so as the month advances. The fewer the flowers
in the copse and the meadow, the more numerous they
are on the mountain sides, amongst rocks and ruins,
by the countless clear streams., and upon the water
itself in still bays of rivers and lakes. The woods are
as silent as they are nowerless, but we shall see and
hear many birds on the moorland and by the margin
of the sea, where if they only pipe and chatter we shall
be content to hear them, and accept any small note as
an apology for a song. The heavy umbrage of the
woodland districts consorts well with the general silence,
and increases the force of the invitation nature now
seems to make to man to be quiet, to be at peace, to
forego many a care in order to enjoy rest, to be content with life as it is, and to banish every remembrance of trouble as the remembrance simply of a
foolish dream, If we sing at all, it should be in some
7

98

Field Flowers.

such strain as that of Longfellow's 'Day of Sunshine/
" O gift of God ! 0 perfect day !
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me
Not to be doing, but to be.
O life and love ! 0 happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man ! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free ?"

The restless spirit cannot long endure this sedative
influence, but, with all the enticements to idleness that
prevail, will at last find work to do, and, mayhap, the
best and busiest work amongst the very things that
conspired to produce the sweet melancholy and the
soothed content. If the restless spirit has any care
for wild flowers, there are as yet plenty of them, but
their days are almost numbered.
Amongst a multitude of possible occupations we may
very well give preference to hunting of hedgerows,
rocks, heaths, and river sides for wild flowers ; keeping
away from the meadows and corn lands as much as
possible, as for the present, and from our present point
of view, barren ground. As usual it matters not in i
what direction we bend our steps, the waysides will
compel our attention by their variety of vegetation,
and we shall not have proceeded far in observing ere
we become pretty well convinced that certain plants
belong to the wayside especially, and scarcely seek a
home anywhere else, as if they loved the flying dust
and the sounds of human footsteps and voices, and the

The Flowers of July,

99

many other passing indications of the higher life of
this great busy world, which make the common ways
of life attractive. Commonest of all the common
weeds is the Great Wayside Plantain, Plantago major,

GREAT WAYSIDE PLANTAIN.

a most interesting plant, though so destitute of beauty.
It has followed every European colonist, and made
itself a home in almost every part of the world. Its
seeds may be conveyed in baggage and mixed up in
the many sorts of merchandise, but as a rule, no doubt

100

Field Flowers.

it finds its way abroad mixed in the grain and grass
seeds, and being in no ways particular about soil or
climate, can soon make any strange land its home.
Amongst the North American Indians it is called
the " White-man's Foot/'
The humble plantains of our roadsides and pastures
are in no way related to the plantain or banana of the
tropics, but constitute a quite distinct order of plants
under the collective designation Plantaginacece, the

FLOWER OF GREAT PLANTAIN.

a a, Elongated filaments of stamens.

ribworts and waybreads. They are indeed waybreads
to the finders, and their leaves afford a meal to cattle
that is not quite despicable, though the poor donkey
in search of a thistle is most likely to enjoy it. The
flower scape is a pretty though humble object, and the
little white or pale pink flowers may be easily dissected
with the aid of a pocket lens. The calyx and corolla
each consist of four parts, the stamens are borne on
peculiarly long filaments, and are the most conspicuous

The Flowers of July.

101

feature of the scape while the flowers are expanding in
succession.
A narrow-leaved kind; more distinctly
ribbed^ called Ribwort Plantain, P . lanceolata, is
often met with on upland pastures, and is commonly
sown mixed with grasses on lands intended for sheep
pasture. The Hoary Plantain, P. media, produces a
pretty scape of fragrant flowers, and which has a hoary
appearance owing to the whiteness of the flowers.
We shall not go far upon the sunny highway without
seeing plenty of thistles, unless, indeed, we are in a
quite mountainous region, where, as a rule, thistles
are scarce. One of the commonest wayside plants of
this family is the Welted Thistle, Carduus acanthoides,
a branched plant, with many smallish neat heads of
pink flowers, and spiny leaves that fringe the stem like
wings. The Spear Plume Thistle, Cnicus lanceolatus, is
equally common, and a larger plant than the last. On
clay lands it is the prevailing thistle, and a great
plague sometimes in cultivated fields. The flowers are
large, and of a light purple colour. The handsomest
of them is the Milk or Virgin Mary's Thistle, Carduus
marianus, a favourite in many a garden. It rises
three or four feet high, the deep green leaves boldly
veined with clear white; the flowers a flne purple
colour. It has furnished many a good salad, and
many a wholesome dish of cooked vegetable to the
family table, and if chopped up or bruised forms a good
fodder for cattle. The Musk Thistle, C. nutans, has
formidable spines, and large reddish-purple flowers,
which in the evening emit a delicious musky odour.
The tallest of the family is the Marsh Plume Thistle,

102

Field Flowers.

Cnicus palustris, which loves rich moist land, where it
will sometimes rise to a height of ten feet. On poorer
soils it will generally rise four feet before it flowers.
It has pinnatifid leaves, and clustered heads of flowers
of a purplish-lilac or white colour.
A common field border species is the Creeping Plume
Thistle, Cnicus arvensis, a variable, always handsome
plant, of most robust habit, rarely rising higher than two
feet, but spreading fast and far, and very often taking
complete possession of cultivated lands of a good loamy
texture, and driving out other forms of vegetation, so
as tolerably well to earn for itself its startling name
of " cursed thistle/' by which it is generally known.
It has pretty broadish heads of purple flowers. The
Woolly-headed Plume Thistle, Cnicus eriophorus, may
be known by its downy leaves, woolly involucres, and
large pale pink and lilac flowers. If you want a thistle
you can handle without pain to your fingers, hunt for
the Various-leaved Thistle, C heterophyllus, which has
a cottony stem, soft, undivided leaves, which are downy
beneath, and handsome heads of flowers of a fine purple
colour. It is more of a mountain than a roadside
plant. All the true thistles have their flowers tinted
more or less with purple; so when you meet with a
yellow thistle you may fairly guess it to be the Carline
Thistle, Carlina vulgaris. Yet even this has purple
florets, but they are accompanied by yellow chaffy rays
which give the flower its peculiar character. We must
quit the thistles by adding that the Scotch Thistle
is Onopordum acanthium, a gigantic plant, with leaves
that somewhat resemble those of the acanthus, but are

The Flowers of July.

103

more silvery in tone, and flattish heads of dull purple
flowers. This, too, is a wayside thistle, for it -usually
selects some stony waste for its residence, though it
does not disdain the rich soil of the moist valley, and is
everywhere a favourite in the garden.
The thistles are members of the great family of
composite or compound flowers, composites, of which we
may regard the common marigold or the daisy as a fair
type. In all these what we call a flower is really a
capitulum, or a head consisting of many flowers
enclosed within a calyx-like involucre. In some of the
sub-orders of the compositse the florets forming the
capitulum are all perfect; in others the outer florets
are destitute of stamens and pistils.
A real waysideflower,though growing also in pastures,
and a good example of a composite, is the Yellow Goafs
Beard, Tragopogon pratensis, which is often a puzzle to
the young botanist on account of its resemblance both to
the dandelion and some large hawkweed. The flower
closes at noon, and hence it is called noonday flower. The
flowers are followed by large balls of downy seeds of a
brownish colour, from which it takes its name of goafs
beard. The Salsafy, T porrifolius, is a near relation,
with purple flowers and very beautiful heads of seeds.
"We must pass a host of hawk bits, and cat's ears, and
less attractive plants, to look for the Wild Lettuce,
Lactuca virosa, which grows on walls and field borders.
It is a most rustic plant with prickly stems and
spreading oblong leaves, far above which rise the loose
clusters of tiny yellow flowers, and as mean every way
as any flowers of the season. Equally common is the

104

Field Flowers.

Wall Lettuce, L. muralis, with large lyre-shaped leaves,
and flowers, that have five regular florets each, and to a
beginner appear to have no relation to the composite
order. The Sow Thistle, Sonchus oleraceus, needs only
to be mentioned as almost a lettuce, and capable of
being made nearly as good a table vegetable. Not far
removed from it in affinities and properties is that
splendid herb the Succory, Cichorium intybus, which
may often be found on the gravelly railway bank and
skirting the cornfield, presenting a glorious display of
pale blue stars. The Burdock, Arctium lappa, was a
favourite at the time when, perhaps, you gathered sow
thistles for a pet rabbit and had an inkling for mischief
of a cheap and simple sort. Its rugged and almost
daring outlines have made it a stock plant with landscape painters, who lose no reasonable chance of
planting it in their foregrounds.
There is yet a host of compound flowers to be found
on waste places and road sides, of which we must
mention but very few more, the discoid Knapweed or
Hard-head, Centaurea nigra, is a very distinct plant,
with the lower leaves lyre-shaped and heads of thistlelike flowers of a dull purple colour, the scales of the
involucre almost black, the stem is as tough as wire,
and the flower heads as hard as flints. The Corn Bluebottle, C. cyanus, is a fine showy centaurea, stem and
under sides of the leaves covered with down; the
flowers brilliant amethyst and extremely characteristic
in outlines. Last but not least in this great gathering of
wayside composites occurs the Great Ox-Eye, Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, a plant often grown in the garden,

PLATE 5.

Buckbean.

Lungwort.

Perfoliate Yellow-wort.

Tufted Centaury.

The Flowers of July.

105

as the moon daisy and the maudlin daisy. If yau do not
happen to know it, keep a look out for a large daisylike flower with a circle of broad bold white rays
enclosing a bright yellow disk.
It will be a poor country that does not show us somewhere on the roadside a sheet of wild roses, and if we
could shut our eyes to all other floral attractions we
might find enough in a rose of any kind to occupy our
thoughts for one whole day, and suggest inquiries for

ELOWEE OE DOG-KOSE.

a, Petals; b, stamens; c, pistils.

many times thereafter. The rose represents the great
family of Rosacea in which are arranged, because in
a certain sense they are roses, nearly all our best fruits,
the peach, plum, cherry, strawberry, raspberry, apple,
pear, quince, and blackberry; besides these, the
hawthorn, which we do not consider a fruit, though the
blackbirds and thrushes are of another opinion, is in the
same sense a rose, and the potentilla, the spiraea, and
the avens belong to the same glorious family.

106

Field Flowers.

All roses have a calyx of four or five sepals, or twice
as many, and a corolla of five petals, uniform in size,
inserted on the calyx. The fruit is a berry, or a pome,
or a drupe. The order comprises trees, shrubs, and
herbs in vast numbers, the majority being natives of
temperate climates. They are as various in their
properties as in their habits, the leaves of some
producing hydrocyanic acid in abundance, while their

SECTION OF FLOWER OF TRAILING- DOG-ROSE.

a, Petals; b, calyx, adhering to or forming the ovary
or seed-vessel, c; d, stamens; e, pistils.

fruits are harmless and in many instances salubrious.
The closest resemblances, as respects certain features,
prevail amongst far removed members of this order, as
for example, between the rose itself and the strawberry.
How like a white rose of more than usually regular
shape and firm texture is the flower of the strawberry.
But turn them both round and you will see that the
rose has only five sepals, while the strawberry has ten.

The Flowers of July.

107

Having got so far, look for the wild Wood Strawberry, Fragaria vesca, and you will find that its paltry
flowers are exact miniatures of the strawberry flowers
of the gardens. Now to what order, let me ask, does
the Common Bramble, Rubus fruticosus, belong? The
flowers are at hand already, and very soon the hedges

BACK VIEW OE FLOWER OE TRAILING- DOG-ROSE.

a, Petals; b, urn-shaped tube of calyx, forming the seed-cup;
es upper divisions of calyx ; d, peduncle.

will be covered with them; surely this too is a rose, and
the wild counter part of the raspberry of the garden.
Equally characteristic are the leaves of these plants.
In the apple, pear, cherry, plum, peach, hawthorn and
quince, the leaves are undivided; but in the brambles,
strawberries, potentillas, burnets, and spiraeas, they are
divided on a plan which in every case resembles more

108

Field Flowers.

or less that of the rose itself—a great help this to the
young botanist.
Now let us hastily name a few rosaceous plants that
are worth finding. The meadow sweet, Spircea ulmaria,
you may look for in ditches and in the moist ground
near a stream, where its foam-like flowers are as
noticeable for their powerful almond-like odour as

BACK V I E W OF STRAWBERRY FLOWER.

as Petals of corolla; b, sepals of calyx; c, peduncle; d, bract.

for their lace-like beauty. The willow-leaved spiraea,
S. salicifolia, has willow-like leaves and light clusters of
rose-tinted flowers; the Common Avens, Geum urbanum,
loves the moist, rich soil by the field side, where the
sun shines brightly. I t has smallish deep yellow
flowers not unlike those of the cinquefoil, which often

The Flowers of July.

109

keeps it company. Very distinct is the water Avens,
G. rivalis, which indeed is not a wayside flower, but
must be sought on marshy ground. The flower is like
a large seal with dull purple calyx and deep yellow
corolla. The white Mountain Avens, Dry as octopetala?

COMPOUND LEAF OP ROSE,

SECTION OE BLOSSOM OF
COMMON BKAMBLE.

is a glorious alpine plant with eight snow-white petals,
and compact tufts of yellow stamens. It has been
rarely found on the higher land of Cumberland and
Yorkshire. The Potentillas and Tormentillas will nooccasion any great amount of trouble, and you may
soon, by the aid of a trustworthy Flora, make acquaintance with all the British species: the Common Tort

110

Field Flowers.

nientil, P . tormentitta, is one of the loveliest gems you
will ever meet with on a summer's day; its rich green,
glossy, five times divided leaves, and its exceedingly neat
small yellow flowers, and its compact miniature habit,

COMMON BEAMBLE ELOWEES, AEEANGED IN A CORYMB.

a, Petals; b, calyx sepals; c, stamens; d, pistils; e, pedicels $
f, bracts ; g, setse or bristles; Jis compound leaf.

are characters that combine to make it represent the
smile of the season for those who can feel as well as see
a smile^ and to whom it is no hard task to believe that

The Flowers of July.

Ill

nature not only smiles, but heartily laughs at us this
time. The Common Agrimony, Agrimonia cupatoria,
a genuine wayside flower, is also a member of the rose
family; you may find it in almost any woodside hedge,
presenting a tall slender spike on which the small
yellow flowers are placed far apart.
As for the roses themselves we have about twenty
native species, and therefore much might be said on
the heads of the family to balance what has been
already said of the tails. But we must be content
with noticing a few of them very briefly. The Common
Dog Rose, Rosa canina, needs to be named merely, for
everybody knows it for its beauty and sweetness,
though it is but faintly scented. It is the "canker"
of the old poets, and is still known by that name in the
west of England. The Sweet Brier, R. rubiginosa,
grows wild in the south of England, adorning and
perfuming many a bosky dell. This is the " eglantine "
of the poets, the " eglantere " of Chaucer. The Burnetleaved Rose, R. spinosissima, is by no means well known.
It forms a dense bush, with dark wiry stems terrifically
armed with spines. The leaves are small with roundish
segments, and the flowers small, and generally creamcoloured, but sometimes snowy white, sometimes
delicate rosy blush. It is highly fragrant and extremely beautiful. We must search in sandy and
chalky places for the burnet-leaved rose, for it rarely
grows on cultivated ground. Equally distinct in character is the Trailing Rose, R. arvensis, which never
forms an independent bush, but flings its long whiplike shoots over the hedge and amongst the purple

112

Field Flowers.

stems of the dogwood on the common. It has large
blush-coloured or pure white flowers; the Ayrshire
roses of the garden are varieties of this wilding.
Hackneyed quotations in praise of the rose may be
found in plenty in the books. Here is a bit of poetic
jewelry that has not been hackneyed:
" Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
Pluck'd in the bud and vaded in the spring !
Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded!
Fair creature, killed too soon by death's sharp sting !
Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree
And falls, through wind, before the fall should be."
SHAKESPEARE'S Passionate Pilgrim, VIII.

Once more on the road, and exploring the hedgerows. Surely a discovery this time—a yellow dead
nettle. " Dear me ; I did not know there was such a
thing !" exclaims somebody. My dear somebody, there
are many other things in the world thai) you do not
know of, and some (perhaps only a few) that you will
never know or hear of. There are, indeed, several
yellow dead nettles; here is one called the Weaselsnout, Galeobdolon luteum, a stout herb, growing two
feet high, closely resembling the white dead nettle,
Lamium album, which grows on the sunny bank alone,
but the galeobdolon has handsome deep yellow flowers,
and loves the shade. The Downy Hemp Nettle,
Galeopsis ochroleuca, is a very scarce downy-leaved
plant with large pale yellow flowers. The largeflowered Hemp-nettle, G. versicolor, is a strong-growing
rustic herb with large flowers of a fine pale yellow
colour, tipped with dull purple. The characters of the

The Flowers of July,

113

labiates are easily impressed upon the mind, yet it
often happens that beginners confound the hood of a
delphinium or aconite for the upper segments of the
labiate flower.
Let us compare the dull purple flowers of the Self-heal,
Prunella vulgaris, one of the commonest of the wayside
plants, conspicuous always by the dark dull hue of its lea ves,
with those of the Monkshood, Aconitum napellus, which
grows wild in a few moist woody localities, and may be
found in almost every garden. The self-heal has an irre-

FLORET OF LABIATE PLANT.

a, Stamens contained within upper or hood-like division of the corolla;
b, lower lip of corolla ; c, calyx, which is slightly irregular.

gular flower enclosed in a tubular calyx; it is two-lipped,
the lower lip the largest divided into three distinct lobes.
All the plants of this order have these labiate flowers ;
they also have opposite leaves, square stems, and not
one of them possesses poisonous properties. In the
Monkshood there are five purple sepals, which constitute the principal part of the flower, and indeed play
the part of petals. One of these is helmet-shaped,
forming the hood from which the flower takes its
name.
8

114

Field Flowers.

The labiate family includes a number of aromatic and
bitter plants, such as mint, sage, marjoram, and other
proper inhabitants of the herb garden.
We

COMMON SELF-HEAL.

shall find upon the heath, forming round moss-like
hillocks for the rabbits to gambol amongst, the lovelywilding thyme, Thymus serpyllum. The Spearmint of the

The Flowers of July.

115

garden, Mentha viridis, may be occasionally found wild
in marshy places, but far more common and more beautiful is the Water Capitate mint, M. aquatica, which throws
up from the shallow water handsome round heads of pale
blue or pale lilac flowers. The Wood-sage, Teucrium

COMMON MONKSHOOD.

scorodonia, begins to bloom now in the woods and on
dry heaths near the sea, forming large clumps of weedy
vegetation covered with spikes of rather insignificant
flowers of a yellowish-green colour tipped with purple.

116

Field Flowers.

The Wood Betony, Betonica officinalis, is too important
a plant to pass by, especially as at first it may be mistaken for a dead nettle of a superior kind. It will be
observed, however, that the intervals between the
whorls of reddish-purple flowers are not uniform; in
some instances several whorls are crowded together and
between those and the next the stem is blank and then
more whorls occur. This is what botanists call" interrupted/' In the dead nettles the intervals between the
whorls are regular, and the whole spike symmetrical in
the arrangement of its parts. With the betony we shall
be pretty sure to find the hedge Woundwort, Stachys
sylvatica, a showy hairy weed with thin textured heartshaped leaves, all on footstalks, and whorls of pretty
flowers of a reddish-purple spotted with white.
As we began the labiates of this month with a caution against a possible error, we will now part from them
with another caution, which may be put into an
aphoristic form to the effect that dead nettles are not
live nettles ! In other words, a dead nettle is not a
stinging nettle, nor related to it even remotely. Our
Common Great Nettle, Urtica dioica, represents the
natural order, Urticece, which in the older classifications
comprised the elm, Hig, mulberry, bread fruit, and
deadly upas. As now restricted, the order comprehends a number of apparently unrelated plants.
They agree, however, in being monoecious, that is, in
producing on the same plant flowers of two sexes
destitute of corollas, and therefore usually unattractive.
The common nettle resembles a labiate in only two
features—the leaves are undivided and the stem is

The Flowers of July,

117

obscurely four angled.
But the flowers have no
corollas, the sexes are separated, and the leaves are
armed with poisonous bristles, with which no doubt you
are sufficiently familiar. A near relation of the nettle

COMMON STINGHNQ- NETTLE.

is the Pellitory, Parietaria officinalis, which you will be
sure to find amongst long neglected rubbish, and on
old walls, and amongst ruins, where it forms thick
beards of dull green weedy vegetation amidst which the

118

Field Flowers.

minute dull red flowers peep out like a powdering of
brick dust. The elm produced its dark clusters of
flowers in March, but the hop, Humulus lupulus, a near

FERTILE ELOWEHS OE THE COMMON HOP.

relative of the nettle, is now in flower, and should be
sought with all haste, for comparatively few people are
aware that it produces flowers, though indeed they are

The Flowers of July.

119

in their way pretty, and as nnlike " hops" as can be
imagined. The male flowers are in green panicles of a
light graceful appearance, each flower consisting of five
segments which we may call sepals, and five stamens.
The female flowers are in cones or catkins, each scale of
which bears a female flower at the base, every flower
having two stigmas. These cones become in due time
the " hops " of commerce, and scarcely one person in a
thousand who has admired them when living, and rejoiced
over them when dead, for the bitter flavour they impart to
beer, could tell us whether to regard the hop as a
flower, or a fruit, or what else.
Heaths and rocks and barren mountain slopes are
grand places for the botanist in July. The great hills
that were black as ink up to the very dawn of summer
are now sheeted with crimson and gold; every damp
hollow is clothed with ferns, and where the mountain
spring trickles over the mossy ground on its way from
the rugged cairn, out of which it issues to the bog
below, its course is marked by the curious red leaves
and delicate white flowers of the Sun-Dew, Drosera
rotundifolia, which sparkles all over with the exuberant
moisture it has sucked out of its peaty bed, and is now
distilling through its leaves in the sunshine.
This gem shall be the signal to us that we have found
the happy hunting grounds. It may be that, as we
spring forward into the midst of the heather, chanting
some snatch of a song, we suddenly find ourselves in
the midst of a tangle of red threads woven all over the
mountain side, so that what we regarded from a distance
as heather simply, consists of heather heightened in

120

Field Flowers.

BOUND-LEAVED STTN-DEW.

effect by this under carpeting of textile stuff. This is
nothing else than the far-famed Lesser Dodder, Cuscuta
epithymum, a terrific plant in its way, for it is a parasite

The Floivers of July,

121

(born to strangle whatever it embraces. The Londoner
who would make sure of seeing this plant in a short
trip had best go to Leatherhead by rail, and then walk
to Oakshott Heath, where there are some splendid

LICHEN, LIN a , AND DODDER.

breadths of it mixed with the Common Ling, Calluna
vulgaris, on a groundwork of white lichen. Having
once seen Oakshott it may prove to be a place of
frequent resort, for it is one of the richest, if not the

122

Field FlowerSo

richest, in botanical spoils of any spot equally near the
metropolis. Whoever makes a journey after Dodder
should somewhere on the road procure a bit of the
Field Bind-weed, Convolvulus arvensis, as an exponent
of the characters of the Dodder, the pretty parasite
being a miniature Convolvulus. This bind-weed rambles
over hillocks on the road side, and runs up amongst

M E L D BINDWEED.

the tangled stems of bramble on the hedge bank, and
plays at " bo-peep " amongst the corn, and very much
to the injury of the corn too. The corolla of a convolvulus consists of only one piece, though marked as if
formed of a number of petals united at their edges.
We shall be sure to find upon the heath lands or upon
the heath-like wastes that occur in the midst of fruitful
districts a number of pretty plants of the Fig-wort

The Flowers of July.

123

family, Scrophularinece. These all have irregular corollas, as in the foxglove and snapdragon. The speedwells are fig-worts of the simplest form, with wheelshaped corollas. Usually these plants have tubular
flowers, the mouths of which gape as in the labiates.
One of the prettiest is the Red Bartsia, Bartsia odontites
(Plate 6), which is almost invariably accompanied by
the delicate Eyebright, Euphrasia officinalis (Plate 6),
a plant of great renown amongst the herbalists of old.
The perky spikes of yellow flowers in the field paths
and on the weedy banks are those of the Yellow Toad
Flax, Linaria vulgaris, a member of a large family, the
prettiest of which is the Ivy-leaved Toad Flax, L. cymbalaria, a creeping plant that loves to clothe the brick
or stone wall of the old bridge with its elegant dark
green roundish leaves, and extremely elegant small
lilac-coloured flowers. The Great Mullein, Verbascum
thapsus, will make itself known by the tall spire-like
spike of yellow flowers, which rise out of tufts of large
woolly leaves. Though coarse it is grand; and though
" a weed/' we can scarcely pluck up courage to root it
out of the garden, where it has a habit of planting itself
in the flower beds. The Moth Mullein, V. blattaria,
is a beautiful species, and rather scarce. It has shining
leaves and rich yellow flowers.
We may expect to find somewhere on the heathy waste
that favourite of the fairies, the Harebell, or Harvest
Bell, Campanula rotundifolia, the name of which ought
to fill a young botanist with perplexity. It is the
Round-leaved Bell-flower, yet we see plainly that it has
linear leaves. But let us make sure by taking the

124

Field Flowers.

plant up by the roots. Now we see the reason of its
name, for the leaves next the root are roundish heartshaped, but as they are generally hidden by the grass,

A

ROUND-LEAVED BELL-ELOWER.

a a, Linear leaves; b h, bracts.

amidst which the plant grows, few people who notice
wild flowers are aware of their existence. When
carefully grown in the garden this becomes an extremely elegant plant. A few years ago a white-

The Flowers of July,

CAMPANULA KOTUNDIFOXIA.

flowered variety of it was exhibited as a " specimen" at
one of the great exhibitions of the Royal Botanic
Society by Mr. Chitty, a veteran London florist. The
exhibitor was rewarded with a certificate of merit. The

126

Field Flowers.

figure on page 125 represents the plant as it appeared in
the exhibition tent. The Rampion, Campanula ravunculus , you will find in the herb garden, and in the flower
garden a host of the handsomest campanulas. Let us

COMMON YELLOW LOOSESTRIFE.

a a, Flowers springing from the axles of the flower-leaves or bracts.

look out, however, upon the heath, and more especially
in the boggy hollows, for the Ivy-leaved Bell-flower,
C. hederacece (Plate 8); it is the very counterpart, in
its way, of the ivy-leaved toad flax.

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127

Having got into the bog, we must be in no hurry to get
out again. I beg pardon for not enumerating, amongst
the implements necessary for a botanist, a pair of water
boots. Bogs are full of wonders for those who have
eyes, but are all inviting to such as have not learned to
observe. Where the little bell-flower grows we may
hunt for the Bog Pimpernel, Anagallis tenella (Plate
6), and its near relative the Money-wort, or Creeping
Loosestrife, Lysimachia nummularia, and the Great
Yellow Loosestrife, L. vulgaris. These last three are
members of the primrose family.
Not far off, perhaps, on sunny banks and dry rocks,
especially if we are near the sea, we may find the Sea
Milkwort, Glaux maritima (Plate 1), a charming little
tufted plant with small pink flowers. But before we
quit the bog we must find the Bog Asphodel, Narthecium
ossifragum, which we cannot mistake, for there is no
other rush-like plant with yellow flowers for which it
might be mistaken.
But here we are amongst the rushes, for the bogasphodel is a true rush, although it has coloured flowers.
The majority of the rushes have cylindrical leaves and
unattractive flowers, but the common Flowering Rush,
Butomus umbellatus, is one of the noblest of our native
aquatics, producing splendid large pink flowers on tall
flower stems that rise high and proudly above the rank
vegetation of the river side. The heath lands usually
produce a number of rushes. One of the most common
is the Great Hairy Wood-rush, Luzula sylvatica, which
closely resembles a grass. The Soft Bush, Juncus
effusus, is common everywhere on marshy lands; the

128

Field Flowers.

HAIEY WOOD-ETJSH.

stems leafless and pliant, the flowers in a spreading
panicle. It is from this rush that wicks are obtained
for candles. The Wayside Rush, Juncus conglomeratus,

The Flowers of July.

129

is also pliant and adapted for making candles, but is
less useful than the last. Before we quit the wild
scenes we ought to find the Cotton Grass, Eriophorum
angustifolium, which grows in almost every bog. It
may be known by its roundish tufts of white silky
flower heads, which are as like balls of cotton as anything we might expect to find in the wilderness. This
plant is not a rush, but a sedge.
Somewhere on high rocks and burning sandy ridges
the Rock-roses are now flowering; but as they are
scarce wildings it may be better to look for them in the
garden. The Common Rock-rose, Helianthemum vulgare, is the most plentiful, being rather common in a
few chalky and gravelly districts. Its tender tint of
green in the spring has a most cheering effect, but now
its leaves are dark and the stems are red, and the numerous yellow flowers glitter in the sun so brightly as to
constitute a wonderful metamorphosis of the timidlooking plant we admired in the early months of the
year. H. guttatum (Plate 4) is European rather than
British; its only recorded British stations being in
Ireland, which, though part of Great Britain, does not
belong to Britain proper.
Two more pretty plants must be looked for while they
are yet in flower. The Wild Mignonette, Reseda lutea,
may be known by its close resemblance—save in odour,
which is unpleasant—to the Garden Mignonette, Reseda
odorata. It is a common weed on chalk, and on the
" tips" in mining districts. Another favourite with
young botanists is the Bed-straw, Galium verum (Plate
8), a pretty member of the madder tribe which grows
9

130

Field Flowers.

in plenty on dry banks everywhere, and in pastures
near the sea.
We cannot close this chapter without a few words on
a class of plants which on every hand present themselves to view, and which particularly abound in damp
and sandy places. These are the umbelliferous plants,
the wild parsleys, hemlocks, fennels, and sanicles. It

COMPOUND LEAF OF UMBELLIFEROUS PLANT.

a, Sheath for stem.

would need a larger book than this to present anything
like a sufficient notice of them, for they are most difficult to deal with in detail, and few British botanists are
acquainted with them in extenso. From this great
family we obtain the carrot, parsnip, celery, caraway,
coriander, and other useful plants, yet the order comprises a large number of poisonous plants, and therefore
ifc is a good rule in botanisiiig to know an umbellifer

The Flowers of July.

131

the moment you see it, and to keep in mind that to
taste leaf, flower, or root, is dangerous. One of the
most striking characteristics of the plants of this order
is the production of the flowers in umbels. The inventor of the umbrella must have obtained the hint
from one of these plants. The leaves are usually much

A, Flower of Umbelliferous Plant: a, petal, with inflecteli^oi'nlf;'
b, stamens; c, pistil, with double style. B, Fruit of Umbelliferous
Plant: a, styles; b, stamen; c, a fleshy disk; d, double fruit.
c, Ripe Seeds or Carpels separating from central axis : D, Section
of Seeds : a, ribs; 5, oil-channels, or vittce.

divided, and in many instances are extremely elegant,
as the fennels and parsleys will testify. The flowers
rarely display individual beauty, although the large
light umbels in which they are produced assort well
with their elegant leaves. The calyx is in five segments ; the petals are five in number, and sometimes
unequal in size; there are five stamens. The fruit is
a curious production, consisting of two carpels, which

132

Field Flowers,

adhere by their faces to a central stalk, from which
when mature they separate below while remaining at-

FLOWEES OP COMMON BEAKED PARSLEY, ARRANGED IN COMPOUND
UMBELS.

a, Central point of primary umbel; h, bracts, or involucel, at
central point of umbel, or partial umbel.

tached at their upper extremity. Each carpel is marked
by five vertical ridges, which, however, are sometimes
inconspicuous; each carpel has a single seed. A con-

The Flowers of July.

133

spicuous plant of this order is the Fool's Parsley,
Mthusa cynapium, the flowers of which have an involucre of three long sharp-pointed leaflets hanging down
under each partial umbel.
The Wood-Beaked Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, is
so called because the egg-shaped fruits have short
beaks. This plant is in fruit now and should be studied
with care, for it is much sought after as food for rabbits, and its leaves are wholesome to man, though its
roots are poisonous. It is one of the first of umbelliferous to deck the hedgerow in spring. The Common
Beaked Parsley, A. vulgaris, has longer fruit than the
last and is less wholesome, in fact it is poisonous, though
not virulently so.
The Common Hemlock, Conium
maculatum, grows in waste places and amongst ruins.
It is an elegant plant, with dark stem and dark foliage,
most elegantly cut, and umbels of white flowers that
render it a conspicuous object amongst the rubbish it
is usually associated with. This is the plant that was
employed by the Athenians as a state poison, and was
the instrument of the execution of Theramenes,
Phocian, and Socrates. Shakespeare represents Lear
in his madness wearing a crown composed of noisome
weeds.
iC

He was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea: singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
"With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn."

Field Flowers.

134

CHAPTER IX.
THE

FLOWERS OF AUGUST.

HE diminution of flowers in the fields is a peculiar characteristic of this season, more especially because the greater part of the flowers
that adorned the land erewhile have disappeared suddenly and completely, producing a sort of darkness as
an eclipse of the sun would. But there are flowers in
abundance yet. The water courses are astonishingly
gay and the heath lands are glorious. The soft colour
of the ripening corn may perhaps please us more than
all else, not alone for its beauty, and it is beautiful, but
for its suggestion of material plenty, and the social and
spiritual blessings that accompany a sufficiency of the
necessities of life. He knew the ways of men who made
his prayer to be " Give me neither poverty nor riches,"
and better still knew Another who said, " Seek ye first
the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added
unto you."
Even the corn fields have their flowers, and notorious
amongst them is the Common Poppy, Papaver rhmas,
which shines like a live coal on the gravelly bank, and
impudently looks up amongst the browning heads of the
wheat, as if to say " grandeur before usefulness."

The Flowers of August.

135

You ought to know the poppy altogether, for it is an
important plant. In relationship it comes very near to
the buttercups, yet it is a representative of a distinct

Poppy-bud Drooping before Flowering. a, The two-pieced calyx.

Expanding Flower of Comiron
Poppy, throwing off calyx, a.

order possessing strongly marked characters. When
folded in the bud the poppy hangs its head, but when
about to expand lifts it up and looks boldly at the sun-

Seed-vessel of Common Poppy, a; b, stamen;
c, part of petal.

shine. The calyx consists of two pieces which are
" caducous/' that is to say, they fall off as the flower

136

Field Flowers.

opens, instead of remaining, as in many other cases, to
protect the flower or the seed. The petals are four in
number, expanding boldly and for a brief while making
a glorious show. There is but one pistil, but many
stamens, and the seed capsule or ovary, which may be
regarded as the base of the pistil, is divided into cells
by partitions which radiate from the sides but do not
meet in the centre. Of the narcotic properties of the
poppy there can be no need to speak except to say
that this common field poppy yields from its seeds an
oil equal in every good quality to that derived from
olives, and that opium of an inferior quality may be
obtained in the usual way from its capsules.
The
Opium Poppy, P . somniferum, is occasionally met with
as a wild plant. It is usually a large white flower with
a deep purple spot at the base of every petal, but from
this colouring it varies to a light lilac. When grown
in fields for the purposes of the druggists it presents a
marvellously beautiful appearance, as the wind plays
about upon the sheets of light flowers and makes them
imitate the ripples, and dimples, and splashes, of a silvery
lake in wonder land. Opium is obtained by making incisions at sunset in the capsules, the result being an exudation of a gummy cream-like substance, which is scraped
off next morning.
A common species, less beautiful than either of the
foregoing, is the Rough-headed poppy, Papaver argemone; the flowers are smaller and less richly coloured
than those of the scarlet poppy, and the capsule is clubshaped and bristly. The Scarlet Poppy has broad petals
which overlap at the edges, but the Rough-headed poppy

Common Eyebright.

Red Bartsia.

Smooth Sea-heath.

The Flowers of August.

137

has narrow petals which stand apart like those of a
cruciferous plant. The Yellow-horned Poppy, Glaucium lateum, may be identified at first sight by its
glaucous leaves and the long horn-like pistil protruding
from the centre of the large handsome yellow flower.
This pistil in due time becomes a seed-pod about eight
inches long, and would attract attention for its singularity if the plant had not a flower left upon it. This
is a sea-side plant, and the gayest of any of the wildings
that put their feet willingly in the brine. Somewhere
amongst rubbish and ruins you may meet with the
Great Celandine, Chelidonium majus, which has the
caducous calyx of the poppy tribe and a pod-like capsule after the fashion of the glaucium. The flower is
yellow, the plant leafy, and every part of it exudes a
thick yellow juice which possesses valuable medicinal
properties. Another lesson here of the folly of trusting
to "English names/'' as they are called. We have two
celandines; they are herbaceous plants, bearing yellow
flowers; but one is a buttercup, the other is a poppy,
one flowers in February and March, the other from
April to October; one loves the marsh, the other the
dry ruin; they scarcely agree in anything except name.
If we had to assign to every month some one flower
as its peculiar characteristic, probably August would be
most consistently mated with the common Mallow,
Malva sylvestris, of the botanist. Everywhere now on
field paths and sunny banks it makes its bright display
of rustic flowers. Of course the mention of this roadside weed will remind the reader of another and better
plant-—the Marsh or Mash Mallow of the herbalist;

138

Field Flowers.

the Althcea officinalis of the botanist. This grows in
salt marshes and in damp hollows in all parts of these
islands, though it is by no means the frequent plant it
is generally supposed. The truth is that the common
mallow is gathered and sold for it, and hence few people
know that the true marsh mallow may be distinguished
by one unmistakeable peculiarity, the leaves being so
downy that we cannot think of anything else in nature
that may be likened to them except it be some of the
softest furs and downs with which certain animals are
provided.
No one needs to be reminded that this is one of the
most valuable herbs in the village pharmacopoeia. Who,
indeed, has not witnessed the soothing effects of its
emollient juices, healing within and without.
The
pollen, which so abounds in the flower, affords a pleasing
subject for the microscope, each particle being spherical
and toothed like the wheel of a watch. The mallow
tribe is characterised by features easily recognised, and
it would scarcely need the suggestion in words to enable
the beginner who had studied a mallow flower to perceive that the Hibiscus of the greenhouse, and the
Althcea frutex of the garden, are both true mallows.
The sepals and petals are each five in number; the
stamens numerous, and united by their filaments into a
tube; the ovary formed of several carpels; the leaves
always alternate. The kidney-shaped anthers are a
conspicuous and universal feature of the plants of the
order of mallow-worts, or Malvaceae,
The Dwarf Mallow, M. rotundifolia, has prostrate
stems, and small pale greyish lilac flowers. The Musk

The Flowers of August,

139

Mallow, M. moschata, is the handsomest of the British
mallows, having light rose-coloured flowers borne on
stems two or three feet high, and light green foliage
which emits in the evening a pleasant odour of musk.
A showy seaside plant is the Tree Mallow, Lav at era
arborea, which is frequently grown in gardens. The
little Hispid Mallow, Althcea hirsuta (Plate 4), is a rare
and beautiful plant, with solitary bright pink flowers
borne on bristly stems amid rough leaves.

SPEAY OP COMMON SCAELET PIMPERNEL.

a a, Flowers springing from the axils of the leaves

When the corn is carried a host of flowers will appear
amongst the stubbie, and prettiest of them all will be
the Scarlet Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, a member of
the primrose tribe in botany, but a nestling of the heart
in the world where sympathy takes the place of science,

140

Field Flowers.

its beauty transcending almost (!) that of the forget-menot.
A companion of the pimpernel in the field will be the
Mayweed, or Corn-Fever few, Pyrethrum inodorum, or
Chryanthemum inodorum, with large white flowers which

COMMON WILD CHAMOMILE.
«, D i s k ; h, r a y ; c, peduncle.

are almost odourless. The Corn Marigold, C. segetum,
may be looked for in the same field, its splendid golden
flowers and glaucous foliage rendering it conspicuous

The Flowers of August.

141

amongst the stubble or the standing corn. Surely, too,
we shall find the common Chamomile, Anthemis no bills,
which we may recognise by the pleasant odour it emits
when brushed by the hand, so very different to that
other very common and almost too common Stinking
Chamomile, A. cotulay which covers waste places with
patches of fennel-like vegetation dotted with white
flowers.

PETTY SPUEGHE.

THE PLOWEES AEEANGED IN UMBELS.

The spurges are now full of fruit, and a few still in
flower. They are as poisonous as they look, so beware
of tasting the smallest particle of one; for if you are

142

Field Flowers.

not seriously hurt thereby, you will be sure to suffer.
The commonest of them is the Petty Spurge, Euphorbia
peplus, which grows in every waste place where the sun
shines, presenting curious weird tufts of bright herbage
surmounted with flowers that appear to be enclosed in
collars or cups. The spurges are a large family possessed
of very evident relationships, so that any one of them
may be known as a spurge at first sight by a mere

MAGNIFIED FLOWERS OF PETTY SPURGE.

A, Front view : a, glands of involucre ; b, stamens; c, ovary ; d, pistils;
B, Side view : a, involucre; b, glands; e, ovary; d, pistils.

beginner who has studied any of the species. The
spurges produce two kinds of flowers,—those bearing
stamens (males), and those bearing pistils (females).
The pistils are usually three in number, and the ovary
three-celled. Our peculiar-looking weeds only faintly
represent the family, for it includes the noble castor-oil
plant, the manchineel, the manioc, and the prickly
Euphorbias that are grown in hothouses for their
splendid scarlet flowers.

The Flowers of August.

143

The Cypress Spurge, E. cyparissias, forms an elegant
grass-like tuft of yellowish-green vegetation, covered in
the early part of the summer with yellow flowers that
are scarcely attractive. It is a favorite garden plant
on account of its peculiar colour and elegant contour.
The Caper Spurge, E. lathyris, is well known as a
garden plant; it grows like a shrub, the colour dark
sea green, with bold, heart-shaped bracts, and large
capsules which are sometimes pickled and eaten as
capers. Though poisonous when fresh, the pickling may
render them innocuous. Nevertheless they are not to
be regarded as wholesome, and it may be well to add that
the true caper is the product of an altogether different
plant, the caper tree, Capparis spinosa, a most elegant
flowering plant which grows commonly on old buildings
in the South of France and Italy. The Sun Spurge,
E. helioscopia, is the commonest of the British Euphorbias, growing on waste lands in plenty, and to be found
in almost every kitchen garden. It varies in height
from two inches to two feet, and bears in July and
August a comparatively large head of greenish-yellow
flowers.
All the species of St. John's Wort are in bloom now;
some of them, indeed, have been in flower since the
beginning of June. One of the most noticeable, especially if it shines out upon the side of an old brick wall
or stone fence, is the Common Tutsan, Hypericum
anclrosmmum, a quite common species in Devon and
Cornwall, but rare elsewhere. The hypericums may be
distinguished as such speedily, but it is another matter
to determine the several species. Some of them are

144

Field Flowers.

shrubby, others herbaceous; but there are strong family
likenesses in their opposite, ovate, or elliptic leaves, and
their showy yellow flowers in which the stamens project
conspicuously in bundles. A common garden plant,
though scarce as a wilding, is the Large-flowered St.
John's wort, which forms a close-growing bushy tuft
covered now with large handsome yellow flowers. A
quite common kind is the Perforated St. John's wort,
H. perforatum, which fringes the woodside and hedgerow
with its fine orange-coloured flowers. In this species
the leaves are strongly ribbed and full of dots, which
must be looked for by holding them up to the light;
the stem is distinctly two-edged. A curious and quite
distinct species is the Marsh St. John's wort, H. elodes,
which grows in plenty in the " Black Ponds" at Claremont. It has small hoary leaves and small pale yellow
flowers. All the traditions and bits of folk-lore that
make the St. John's wort a legend belong, doubtless, to
H. perforatum, which we must regard especially as the
St. John's wort, scaring from the midnight heath the
witch and goblin with its spicy breath. The " midnight
heath" has no particular charms for the botanist. The
cool breeze may be delicately perfumed with the
breathings of furze and heather bloom, and the " flowers
of heaven, the golden stars," may lift the thoughts of the
wanderer from earth to higher things; but we want the
daylight to display the glories of the flowery waste,
where the grasshopper lark fills the bracken and
bramble with its sibilant whispering, and the piping of
the curlew resounds upon the stony moors.
Nowhere can the botanist who has been accustomed

The Flowers of August.

145

to town life and its peculiar moral surroundings find
more delightful entertainment now than upon the heath
lands, for not only are they extravagantly rich in colour
wherever the furze and heather congregate, and on the
higher ranges swept by bracing breezes, but everywhere
may be seen forms of vegetation that never occur in the
pastoral countries, or on fat lands, or—except very
rarely—in the vicinity of towns. The Londoner may
do well for a botanizing tour at Hampstead. Better
far anywhere on the Bagshot range, especially where
there are fir woods and bogs. The heathy districts of
the New Forest are scarcely inferior in grandeur of
scenery and variety of vegetation to the Highlands of
Scotland. It is impossible to enjoy the wilder scenes
of nature without a deep consciousness of the perfect
harmony between the forms of vegetation they produce
and the abrupt and sometimes fantastic outlines of the
hills and rocks, and the sudden transitions that occur
from leagues of black heath, or lichen-coated sand, to
green oases where the grasses and crowfoots congregate,
and the water pimpernel and the sundew form connecting links between the moist and the arid districts.
Although we are surrounded with wonder at all times,
and may even regard our own frames and faculties as
miracles, it is only on rare occasions and in rare scenes
that we can truly look on nature as the visible evidence
of the invisible God, for use and wont do weaken all the
first impressions that every phase of existence should
secure. It may be that on the lovely heath where the
hills rise on all sides and exclude all fruitful lands from
view, we may experience spiritual sensations which no
10

146

Field Flowers.

ordinary scenes would arouse, and feel life itself to be a
draught of joy for" which we were all unprepared in the
monotony of our every day being. The very consciousness that the world is more than we can master, and
life an enigma which the Almighty alone can solve,—the
consciousness of being wrapped around with mysteries
does not occur to us as we walk in the old ruts and
grooves of custom; but one hour upon a breezy heath
may reveal to us more within ourselves than we ever
knew of before, and, as it were, re-establish our union
with nature as subservient to our higher relations with
Him that filleth all in all. Let us hear the wise poet
Spenser oii some such thought as may flash upon us as
we make our way in solitude full of inward peaceableness across the flowery heath:
"

Take thy ballaunce, if thou be so wise,
And weigh the wind that under heaven doth blow %
Or weigh the light that in the East doth rise,
Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow :
Eut if the weight of these thou canst not show,
Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall:
For how canst thou those greater secrets know
That dost not know the least things of them all ?
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small."

The heaths represent a race of plants which are better
known for beauty than usefulness. They have bellshaped flowers which consist of one petal each, generally
four-cleft, and a four-cleft calyx; the fruit a berry or a
dry capsule. The heaths of the Cape of Good Hope,
the rhododendrons, azaleas, and kalmias are famous
plants in gardens. The best known of our ericaceous
plants is the Common Ling, Calluna vulgaris, which

PLATE 7

Cross-leaved Heath.

Cranberry.

Cornish Heath.

Fine-leaved Heath.

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147

grows in the greatest abundance on the heath and about
the margins of heathy bogs and the mountain side where
there appears to be not a particle of soil for its sustenance.
The Cross-leaved Heath, Erica tetralix (Plate 7), is in
many places as abundant as the ling, and far more
beautiful; the leaves are in whorls of four, the flower
stalks white with down, the flowers in clusters of pale
pink drooping bells. The Fine-leaved Heath, or Red
Heather, E. cinerea (Plate 7), is plentiful in almost
every district where the ling is found. It may be known
by its crowded clusters of flowers occupying about a
third of the stem, the colour reddish purple.
The Cornish Heath, E. vagans (Plate 7), is not confined to the county from which it takes its name, though
it is but rarely met with far away from it. It may be
known when met with by its leanness and its large
bell-shaped flowers. We have found this species on
several occasions on the boggy parts of Oakshott heath
in company with tree-like plants of ling quite three
feet high.
In the moist hollows of the moor land we may look
for the Bilberry, Vaccinium myrtillis, with its myrtlelike leaves and black berries, and the Cranberry, V.
oxycoccos (Plate 7), with its scarlet berries. These
plants are closely allied to the heaths in construction as
well as habit.
Many a strange and lovely plant will be gathered on
the moorlands differing in type and tone from everything we are accustomed to on fertile lands. If near
the sea the Sea Heath, Frankenia Icevis (Plate 6), may
be one of them. The more needful to know this because

148

Field Flowers.

it is not an erica or heath proper, but constituting an
order far apart, as may be judged by the figure. The
Alpine Barren wort, Epimedium alpinum (Plate 1), a
relative of the barberry, may gladden a toilsome walk
up the mountain, with its elegant heart-shaped leaves
and delicate four-parted yellow flowers. Its proper
season of flowering is May, but it may be found in flower
even now. The Red Centaury, Erythr&a centaurium,
a member of the gentian family, with several others of
the same genus, now dot the heaths and dry pastures
with tufts of exquisitely neat red flowers
If such humble things fail to attract, then haste to
the river side and see the great Purple Loosestrife,
Lythrum salicaria, with its long narrow leaves and
gorgeous purplish red flowers, the equal any way of the
Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, which ought to be out
of flower now, and yet may be found in many a shady
nook full of flowers in August. If the appetite for
beauty is not yet appeased, search out a shady bank
that overhangs a ditch or brook, and indulge in raptures
when you find the Great Hairy Willow Herb, Epilobium
hirsutum, a splendid plant that grows like a shrub, well
clothed with downy leaves, and every branch surmounted
with myriads of rosy flowers. The long seed capsules
of the epilobiums are immistakeable; yet, though they
may remind you of wallflowers and stocks, these plants
belong to the same order as the fuchsias, evening primroses, and isnardias.

The Flowers of September and October.

149

CHAPTER X.
THE FLOWERS OF SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER.

APID and striking is the decline of flowers as
the leaves redden and the days contract in
length. Now, as in early spring, the flowers
are mostly white and yellow, it is but rarely we meet
with shades of red and blue, for those colours belong
to the days of prolonged and powerful sunlight, being,
indeed, products of sunlight, for King Sol is the painter
of all landscapes, and not one blotch of colour occurs
upon any picture without his immediate aid. The woods
and hedgerows are now decked with myriads of ripe
fruits of all kinds, from the dazzling vermilion " hips "
of the wild rose, and the quiet scarlet " haws " of the
hawthorn, to the blue-black styptic sloe and the jet
black juicy bramble berry " whose fruit full well the
schoolboy knows."
In all the dusty highways and on the sunny hedgerows, and in many a great pasture land, the flower of
September is the common Ragwort, Senecio Jacobma,
which makes a grand display of yellow compound
flowers in loose corymbs, rising out of a rustic herbage
of lyre-shaped leaves.
10 §

150

Field Flowers.

A host of near relations of this plant ard flowering
now. The coarse Marsh Ragwort, S. aquations, which

COMMON RAGWORT.

INFLORESCENCE ARRANGED IN A CORYMB.

grows by the margins of streams, may be regarded as a
large edition of the common one. The Great Fen

PLAta-8.

Germander Speedwell.

Wood Hawkweed.

Y allow Bedstraw.

Ivy-leaved Bell-flower.

The Flowers of September and October,

151

Ragwort, S. paludosus, occurs in a few marshy spots in
the eastern counties; it has clasping lanceolate leaves
and large yellow flowers.
The hawkweeds are fully as numerous as the ragworts, but more modest in their frequenting moist and
shady places. You will have to work hard to make
acquaintance with them all. One that you will meet
with in almost any district now is the Common Hawkweek or Mouse-ear Dandelion, Hieracium pilosella. It
has beautiful yellow flower-heads containing a great
number of flat strap-shaped florets in the form of a
rosette, and the leaves are undivided. Another common
kind is the Wall Hawkweed, H. murorum, which grows
on walls; the leaves are egg-shaped and toothed, the
flowers large and handsome. The Wood Hawkweed,
H. sylvaticum, abounds in mountainous woods and
coppices; the leaves are egg-shaped and toothed, the
flower bright yellow. It is a variable plant.
In damp spots near the borders of woods and on
cliffs rising above the sea, the Hemp Agrimony,
Eupatorium cannabinum, makes a conspicuous figure,
though it is by no means a handsome plant; as it is
neither a hemp proper nor an agrimony proper, its
name serves to illustrate the delusiveness of " popular "
terminology. It is a robust composite plant, with
opposite leaves, three to five-cleft, of a dusty green
colour, and dense corymbs of small dingy flesh-coloured
flowers. The lively Golden Rod, Solidago virgaurea,
a member of the same great order, is likely enough to
be found as a companion plant, especially on the
chalky cliff where plants of commanding aspect can

152

Field Flowers.

display their characters distinctly.
An autumnal
botanizing tour would scarcely be successful if the blue
Michaelmas Daisy, Aster tripolium, did not occur
amongst the findings; but it must be sought in the
salt marsh and beside the tidal river, where it imitates
the chicory of the dry gravel by its starry pale blue
flowers.
Having wandered from the inland hedgerows to the
neighbourhood of the sea, it is needful to make note of
a few more marine plants. Perhaps the most to be
desired for its bold and beautiful character is the Sea
Holly, Eryngium maritimum, which you will know the
first time you see it, though it is not a holly, and quite
unlike what it really is, a member of the umbelliferous
order. The minute blue> thistle-like flowers, occur in a
close head during August, and are succeeded by aromatic seeds.
The Michaelmas Daisy is frequently gathered and
sold for another plant of great renown, the Samphire,
Crithmum maritimum, an umbelliferous plant with
fleshy, yellowish green leaves, and thick clusters of
greenish-white flowers. This, when pickled with vinegar
and spices, becomes a table delicacy, and though now
scarcely appreciated, did in old times occupy an important place amongst " sallet herbes." Shakespeare's
allusion to it derives its force as much from the then high
value set upon the plant, as from the danger of him who
gathered it, while swinging perhaps in mid air from the
edge of the cliff, hundreds of feet above the chafing
breakers. " Dreadful trade V9 The Sea Southernwood or
Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is frequently seen on stony

The Flowers of September and October,

153

ground near the sea. It is a plant of no beauty, and quite
distinct from the Garden Southernwood, A. abrotana,
which is not a native of Britain. The mugwort has dark
green pinnatifid leaves, covered underneath with cottony
down, and small clusters of pale yellow flowers. It is quite
odourless. The Sea Wormwood, A. maritima, invariably
grows in great grey patches, the leaves are downy on
both sides, the flowers greenish and small. This plant
emits an odour very much resembling that of the
garden southernwood.
Returning to the woods we may now hunt in the
boggy places for a famous and beautiful plant, the
Grass of Parnassus, Parnassia palustris (Plate 2), a
charming plant of the St. John's wort family, which
the figure will represent better than words. It is by
no means rare in the north of England, but seldom seen
elsewhere. But the south takes revenge upon the north
now by presenting on the chalk cliffs the beautiful Perfoliate Yellow-wort, Chloraperfoliata (Plate 5), a member
of the gentian order, the pale sea-green stem of which
runs through the sea-green leaves to carry at its summit
a few elegant eight-parted yellow flowers, which open
only during sunshine.
"*Tis done! dread winter spreads its latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictured life: pass some few years,
Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
And pale concluding winter comes at last,
Thy sober autumn fading into age,
And shuts the scene."

154

Field Flowers.

As you will now be making up your herbarium, and
recalling on rainy days and long evenings the delightful rambles your dried specimens remind you of, a
hint as to the uses of herbarium waste may be useful.
Save carefully all the spare tormentils and small
grasses, and whatever else appears to be fit for embroidery to be worn by fairies. Mount these delicate
scraps with gum on note papers as floral vignettes, and
give them freely to those who love you. Subjoined
sample of style of mounting may not be unacceptable.

I N D EX.
PAGE

. 53
.111
. 139
. 53
. 129
. 152
. 153
. 108
. 147
. 133
. 53
. 129
. 35
. 116
. 147
. 122
. 24
. 32
. 57
. 91
. 110
. 36
. 42
. 62
. 107
. 77
. 64
. 62
. 104
. Ill
. 40
. 46
. 123
38,67
. 143
. 88
. 102
. 68
. 89
16,137
. 104
. 147
. 70
. 141
. 68
. 21
. 154
. 153
. 12
. 68
. 93
. 14
. 62
. 122
. 104
. 68
. 140

Corydalis
Cranberry
Cranesbill
Crowfoot
Cuckoo flower
Cuckoo-pint
Currant .
Cypress spurge
Daffodil.
Daisy
Dandelion
Dead nettle
Diantlius
Dodder .
Dog rose
Dog's-tail grass
Dove's foot
Eglantine
Enchanter's nightshade
Endogens
Erica
Eryngium
Euphorbia
Exogens.
Eyebright
Fabaceous plants .
Eescue grass
Eever few
Eool's paisley
Forget-me-not
Foxtail grass
Euize .
Genista .
Geianium
Germander
Goat's beard
Grape hyacinth
Grasses .
Great ox-eye
Gromwell
Ground ivy
Groundsel
Hair grass
Hare's-foot grass .
Harebell
Harvest bell
Hawkweed
Hazel
Heaitsease
Heaths .
Hellebore
Hemlock
Hemp agrimony .
Hemp nettle
Herb Paris
Herb Robert
Herbarium

Index.

156

PAGE 1

Hibiscus
Hieracium
Holly
.
Honeysuckle
Hop
Horned poppy
Hutchinsia
Hypericum
Ivy
Judas tree
Knapweed
Knotgrass
Leguminous plants
Lettuce .
Ling
Loosestrife
Lucei ne .
Lungwort
Luzula .
Lysimachia
Lythrum
.
'
Mallow .
Marigold
Mayweed
Meadow sweet
Medick grass
Melilot .
Michaelmas daisy .
Mignonette
Milfoil .
Millet grass
Milk-wort
Mint
.
Money-wort
Monkey orchis
Monkshood
Mouse-ear chick u eed
Mullein .
Musk thistle
Narcissus
Needle green-weed
Opium poppy
Parnassia
Parsley .
Pasque flower
Pea
Pearl-woit spuney
Pellitory
Petty spurge
Petty whin
Pheasant's eye
Pilewort
Pimpernel
Pink
Plantain
Poppy .
Potentilla
Primrose
Prunella
Pyrethrum
Quaking grass

. 138
. 151

•
.

4

65
. 118
. 137
. 23
. 143
5
. 79
104
. 59
. 77
. 103
. 121
133,148
. 81
. 63
. 137
. 127
. 148
. 137
14, 140
. 140
. 108
. 81
. 81
. 152
. 129
. 73
. 90
. 127
. 115
. 127
. 53
. 114
• 70
. 123
. 101
. 43
. 81
. 136
154
. 130
52
. 83
71
. 117
. 142
. 81
53
. 16
127, 139
. 08
. 99
. 136
109
. 26
. 113
. 140
. 92

FEINTED BY J. E

Ragged robin
Rag-wort
Ranunculus
Reed grass
Rest harrow
Rock rose
Rose
Rush
St. John's-wort
Salsafy .
Samphire
Sand-wort
Scotch thistle
Sea heath
Sea milk-wort
Sea reed
Self-heal
Senecio .
Shepherd's purse .
Sneeze-wort
Soap-wort
Southernwood
Sow thistle
Speedwell
Spergula
Spirgea .
Spurge .
Spurrey
Stinging nettle
Stitch-wort
Stork's-bill
Strawberry
Sun-dew
Sua spurge
Sweet brier
Teesdalia
Thyme .
Thistle .
Toad-flax
Tormentil
Trefoil .
Tutsan
Twitch
Umbellifers
Vasculum
Vernal grass
Vetch .
Violet .
Virgin's thistle
"Wake robin
Waybread
"Weasle snout
Whitlow grass
White-man's foot
Woodbine
Woodsage
Wood ruff
Wood sorrel
Wound-wort
Yarrow .
[ Yellow-wort

ADLAED, BAUT JiOLOMKW CLOSE.