An enemy hath done this.
Thesowing of wildflowers is deprecated by some botanists, presumably as an interference with natural processes, an unauthorized attempt to play Providence in the vegetable kingdom; but the subject is one that seems to call for fuller discussion than it usually receives.
We are told in the parable that the man who sowed tares among the wheat was an enemy; and certainly if there was an intention to injure the crop the expression was not too strong. But I have sometimes wondered whether the reprehensible act may not have been that of some botanical enthusiast, who, loving wildflowers not wisely but too well, was trying to save from extinction some rare weed of the cornfields which was disappearing under improved methods of culture.
That this way of augmenting the flora of a country is nowadays not uncommon may be guessed from the frequent occurrence in botanical works of the comment "probably planted." Only a few pagesback, I referred to the case of a pond in Hertfordshire now strongly held by a battalion of water-soldiers, the descendants of imported plants. There is evidence, too, that the practice has occasionally been indulged in by naturalists of great distinction, an amusing instance being that of the venerable and much-respected Gerarde, whose description of the peony as growing wild near Gravesend drew from his editor, Johnson, the following remark: "I have beene told that our author himselfe planted the peionie there, and afterwards seemed to finde it there by accident; and I doe believe it was so, because none before or since have ever seene or heard of it growing wilde in any part of this kingdome."[14]
Again, it is stated in Canon Vaughan'sWild Flowers of Selbornethat Gilbert White himself "was once guilty of this misdemeanour." He sowed, not tares in wheat, but seeds of the grass of Parnassus in the Hampshire bogs, and sowed them according to his own statement unsuccessfully; it would appear, however, from what Canon Vaughan discovered that White was "more successful than he imagined." However that may be, the question that arises is whether a judicious extension of the range of wildflowers by the agency of man is really a thing to be censured. May not a flower-lover occasionally sow his "wild oats"?
It must be admitted that the objections to such a practice are not retrospective, for if it be a misdemeanour, it is one that is condoned, perhaps hallowed, by time. For as it is impossible to draw a strict line between flowers that were accidentally imported or "escapes" from ancient gardens, and those that were planted deliberately, we wisely ask no questions in the case of old-established plants of foreign origin, but receive them into our flora as aliens that have become naturalized and are honourably classed as "denizens"; when they have once made good their tenure of the soil, it seems to matter little by what means they arrived. Thus, for example, the starry trefoil, which colonized the Shoreham shingles over a century ago, having apparently come as a stowaway on board some foreign ship, was not only tolerated but highly regarded by English botanists, and its recent destruction is felt to be a national loss. Would it have detracted from its value, if, as indeed may have happened, it had been purposely sown on the beach? On the contrary, it seems desirable that it should now be restored in that manner.
Such planting, of course, if done at all, should be done circumspectly, and on a fixed principle, not as an amusement for irresponsible persons or children. I know a flower-lover who, in a district where that beautiful St. John's-wort, the tutsan, was dwindling through depredations, or through some unexplained malady, carefully restored thebalance in a score or so of suitable spots; and surely such action was much to be commended. But it is not desired that everyone should be planting tutsan everywhere; nor is there any danger of such a fashion arising, for there is much less tendency to plant than to pluck, to create than to destroy; and for that reason it would be folly to reintroduce any rare plant like the lady's slipper, where the collector would quickly reap what the enthusiast had sown.
Such was the objection, it seems to me, to a proposal made some years ago by Edward Carpenter and others, that the diminishing numbers of the rarer butterflies should be reinforced by breeding. One would not willingly repeat the comedy of the angling craze, which solemnly stocks rivers with fish in order to pull them out again for pastime.
Nor, becausesomeplanting of wildflowers may be unobjectionable, does it follow that all such enterprises are deserving of praise. A recent announcement that the Llanberis side of Snowdon, a locality rich in British mountain flowers, was being sown by Kew experts with the seeds of a number of "Alpines" from Switzerland, was likely to be more agreeable to rock-gardeners than to mountain-lovers, who have a regard for the distinctive character of Snowdon itself, and of its native flora. A country which has allowed its finest mountain to be exploited for commercial purposes, as Snowdon has been, is perhaps hardly in a position to protestagainst a Welsh hillside being planted with alien Swiss flowers, and even with Chinese rhododendrons; but nevertheless such schemes are thoroughly incongruous and barbaric. What sort of mountains do we desire to have? A piece of nature, or a nursery-garden? A Snowdon, or a Snowdon-cum-Kew?
Be it understood, then, that the sowing of tares is by no means recommended as a practice: all that is here urged is that a sweeping condemnation of it is not warranted by the facts, inasmuch as circumstances, not dogma, must in each case decide whether it be blameworthy, or harmless, or beneficial. And apart from common sense, there is one natural safeguard which will prevent any undue growth of wildflowers, viz. the remarkable fastidiousness of the choicer plants in regard to soil and conditions: they will flourish where it suits them to flourish, not elsewhere. Certain auxiliaries, too, Nature has in the rabbits, water-voles, and other wild animals that are herbivorous in their tastes; for it is very interesting to observe how quickly the appearance of a strange plant will attract the attention of such gourmands.
I was once the owner of a sloping meadow in which there were some springs; and thinking it would be pleasant to have a water-garden I had a small pond made, into which I introduced some aquatic plants, and among them, most accommodating of all, the water-violet, which grew lustily and sent up a number of its graceful stalks withwhorls of pink blossoms. But just at that time a water-vole took up his residence there, and developing a remarkable fondness for a new savour in his salads, quickly made havoc of myHottonia palustris. The neighbours assured me I must trap him; but to treat a fellow-vegetarian in that way was out of the question, especially as his confidence in me was so great that he would sit nibbling my favourite aquatic, which seemed also to behisfavourite, while I stood within a few yards. It was clear that if the cult of the water-violet involved the killing of the water-vole it had got to be abandoned.
In this way, among others, does Nature protect herself against an excessive interference on man's part with the distribution of wildflowers.
Deeper and narrower grew the dell;It seemed some mountain, rent and riven,A channel for the stream had given,So high the cliffs of limestone grayHung beetling o'er the torrent's way.Scott.
Thelimestone Dales of Derbyshire are narrow and deep, and their streams, when visible (for they often lurk underground), are swift, strong, and of crystal clearness. The sides of the glens are in some places precipitous with bluffs and pinnacles of grey rock; in others, ridged and streaked with terraces of alternate crag and turf; above the cliffs there is often a tableland of bleak pastures divided by stone walls, as dreary a scene as could be imagined, when contrasted with the picturesque dales below.
The flowers of these limestone valleys immediately recall those of the chalk: the marjoram, the basil, the great knapweed, the traveller's-joy, the rock-rose, the musk-thistle—these and many other familiar friends make us seem, at first sight, to be back in Sussex or Surrey. But in reality we are a hundredand fifty miles nearer to the arctic zone, and that difference is clearly reflected in the flora; for when we look around, a number of new plants make their appearance, of which a dozen or more are very rare, or quite unknown, in the south. I once lived for several years on the hills above Chesterfield, a good way to the east of this limestone country; and to visit the nearest of the Dales there was a walk of seven miles, to and fro, across the intervening high moors that form the southern buttress of the Pennines. Stoney Middleton is far from being one of the pleasantest of Peakland villages; but such was the interest of its flora that the fourteen-mile trudge, and more, was often undertaken during the summer months.
After traversing the great heathery moors devoted to the cult of the grouse, and descending from the rocky rampart of gritstone known as Curbar Edge, one crosses the valley of the Derwent; and here a pause may be made to notice a patch of sweet Cicely, one of the loveliest of the umbelliferous tribe. It is a charming sight, as it stands up tall in the sunshine, with its soft feathery cream-white masses of foliage and its fernlike leaflets; too fair and fragile, it would seem, for human hands, for it droops very soon if cut. Every part of it—stalk, leaves, flowers, and fruit—has the same aromatic fragrance (its local name is "anise"), and so gracious is it to sight, scent, and touch, that one longs to bathe one's senses in its luxuriance.
Middleton Dale, naturally beautiful, but sadly deformed by lime-kilns, is famous for a cliff known as the Lover's Leap, from which an enamoured maiden is said to have thrown herself down. Had it been the love of flowers, rather than of man, that tempted her to that dizzy verge, there would have been no cause for surprise; for there are many alluring plants on the ledges of the scarp, including a brilliant show of wild wallflowers. In May and June there may be found along the northern side of the dale the yellow petals of the spring cinquefoil (potentilla verna), a gem of a flower, which, in Mr. Reginald Farrer's words, "clings to the white cliff-face, and from far off you see a splash of gold on the greyness." A month later the equally attractive Nottingham catch-fly (silene nutans) will be abundant on the rocks; a plant of nocturnal habits which expands its petals and becomes fragrant in the evening, but "nods," as its Latin name avows, in the daytime, when it wears a sleepy and somewhat dissipated look, like a wassailer—a white campion that has been "on spree." By night its beauty is beyond cavil.
On the lower slopes is a colony of a still stranger-looking flower, the woolly-headed thistle, whose involucre is so bulky, and its scales so densely wrapped in white down, that it has an almost grotesque appearance, as of a thistle with "swelled head." It is, however, a very handsome plant; and when growing in vast numbers, as I have seen it in oneof its special haunts, near Wychwood Forest, in Oxfordshire, it makes a glorious spectacle.
Of the three species of saxifrages—the rue-leaved, the meadow, and the mossy—that thrive along the bottom of the dale, the two former are southern as well as northern flowers; but the presence of the mossy saxifrage is a sign that we are in a mountainous region, and as such it is always welcome. With these grows the graceful vernal sandwort, another flower of the hills, and so often the companion of saxifrages that it is naturally associated with them in the mind.
But Middleton Dale, the nearest to my starting-point, and therefore the most frequently visited by me, is much surpassed in floral wealth by the long valley of the Wye, which in its course from Buxton to Bakewell bears the names successively of Wye Dale, Chee Dale, Miller's Dale, and Monsal Dale. In one or another of these four glens nearly all the rarer limestone flowers have their station. You may find, for instance, three very local crucifers: the two whitlow-grasses,draba incanaanddraba muralis, remarkable only as being scarce in other parts of the kingdom; and the really beautiful littleHutchinsia, with its tiny white blossoms and finely cut pinnate leaves. Jacob's-ladder, a handsome blue flower, very uncommon in a wild state, is also native on the bluffs and slopes in Chee Dale and elsewhere: in fact a stroll along almost any of the limestone escarpments will bring new treasures to sight.
But the flower which I best love is one which grows by the streamside—in Wye Dale it is in profusion—the modest water-avens, often strangely undervalued by writers who describe it as "dingy." Thus in Delamer'sThe Flower Gardenit is stated that this avens "is more remarkable for having been one of the favourites, the whims, the caprices of the great Linnæus, than for anything else: it is hard to say what, in a British meadow-weed, could so take the fancy of the Master." Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre goes on to say that "it is impossible to account, logically, for attachments and sympathies."
Logic, truly, would be out of place in such a connection; but it is not difficult to understand Linnæus's feelings towards the water-avens. There is a rare beauty in the droop of its bell-like head, and in its soft and subdued tints—the deep rufous brown of the long sepals, through which peep the silky petals in hues that range from creamy white to vinous red, and all steeped in a quiet radiance as of some old stained glass. I must own to thinking it the most tenderly beautiful of all English wildflowers. The hybrid between the water-avens and the common avens is occasionally found by the Wye: one which I saw in Miller's Dale had green sepals and petals of pale yellow.
The Alpine penny-cress (thlaspi alpestre), a crucifer native on limestone rocks, may be seen on the HighTor at Matlock, where it grows with the vernal sandwort on débris at the mouth of caves; a graceful little plant with white flowers and a smooth unbranched stem so closely clasped by the narrow leaves as to give it the look of a perfoliate.
One other limestone district shall be mentioned; the hills round Castleton. Cave Dale, approached by a narrow gorge close to the village, is well worth the flower-lover's attention; for bleak and bare as it is, its slippery sides harbour some interesting plants, such as the mountain rue (thalictrum minus), and the scurvy-grass (cochlearia alpina), both in considerable quantity. In the Winnatts, too, the steep ravine which overhangs the road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith, one may find Jacob's-ladder and other rarities on the rocks; and the gorgeous mountain pansy (viola lutea) is not far distant on the upland heaths and pastures.
The list is far from being exhausted; but enough has been said to show that there is no lack of entertainment among these limestone dales. To enter one of them, after crossing the moorland from the dreary coal district of east Derbyshire, is like stepping from penury to plenty, from wilderness to paradise: there is a change of colouring that instantly attracts the eye. Even in early spring the little shining crane's-bill decks the walls and lower rocks with its rose-petaled flowers; and at midsummer the more showy stonecrop flings a veritable cloth of goldover the crags and lawns. Few localities present so many charming flowers in so limited a space.
And now let us turn from the limestone valleys to those of the millstone grit.
The controversy as to which part of Derbyshire best deserves the name of "The Peak" has always seemed a vain one, not merely because there is no peak in the county at all, but because no connoisseur can doubt for a moment that the district which alone has the true characteristics of a mountain is the great triangular plateau of gritstone known as Kinderscout. Less beautiful than the limestone dales, with their beetling crags and wealth of flowers, the wilder region surrounding "the Scout" has the advantage of being a real bit of mountain scenery, topped as it is with black "tors" and "towers" that rise out of the heather, and flanked with rocky "edges" from which its steep "cloughs" descend into the valleys below.
Unfortunately, this great rocky tableland has of late years become almost aterra incognitato the nature-lover, as a result of the agreement which was made, after prolonged controversy, between the Peak District Society and the grouse-shooting landlords, inasmuch as, while permitting the traveller to skirt the shoulders of the hill, it excluded him wholly from its summit.
With the exception of the heather, the bilberry, and a few kindred species, the plants of the gritstonehills are sparse; but there is one, the cloudberry—so-called, according to Gerarde's rather magniloquent description, because "it groweth naturally upon the tops of high mountains ... where the clouds are lower than the tops of the same all winter long"—which well repays a pilgrimage. It is a prostrate and spineless bramble (rubus chamæmorus), highly valued in northern countries for its rich orange-coloured fruit. It grows thickly on the ground, making a dark-green patch in marked contrast to the coarse herbage; and towards the end of June one may see a profusion of the large white blossoms and a few early formed berries at the same time. There is a good-sized plot of it near the summit of the pass that crosses the shoulder of Kinderscout from Edale Head.
But of the plants that grow on the Scout itself I am unable to speak; for my only visit to it—not reckoning an unsuccessful attempt when I was turned back by a keeper—took place in the depth of a very snowy winter. It was on the afternoon of a frosty January day, when the sun was already low, that in the company of my friend Bertram Lloyd, and armed with a passport, in the form of a letter of permission, given us by the courtesy of one of the owners of the shooting, I climbed from Edale, through the region of right-of-way into that of flagrant trespass. We felt an unusual sense of legality, as we passed a weather-beaten notice-board, with a half-obliterated threat that trespasserswould be "—cuted," whether executed, electrocuted, or prosecuted was left to the imagination of the offender; and I think the strangeness of his position was rather embarrassing to my companion, who is such a confirmed trespasser that he feels as if something must be amiss unless there is a gamekeeper to be reckoned with—like the mountain ram, in Thompson-Seton's story, who was so accustomed to be hunted that he became moody and restless when his pursuer was not in sight.
But, at the time of our visit, no passport was demanded; for the keepers, like the grouse themselves, appeared to have deserted the heights for the valleys. Indeed, hardly any life at all was to be seen, with the exception of a grey mountain hare, couched upon a stack of rock, who regarded us with a mild and curious eye as we passed some two hundred feet above him, and seemed to be satisfied that we were harmless. Nor was this lack of life surprising, for a more desolate scene could hardly be imagined—a great snow-clad "moss," intersected by deep ruts, which, being choked with snow, had somewhat of the appearance of crevasses, and punctuated here and there with the black masonry of the tors. From the highest point that we reached, marked in the ordnance map as 2,088 feet, there was a wonderful sunset view, though the Manchester district that lies to the west of the Scout was hidden in lurid fog. It is said that Snowdon, a hundred miles distant, has been seen from thispoint. It was certainly not visible upon the occasion to which I refer.
It is impossible to visit this high mountain plateau, lying as it does at about an equal distance from Manchester and Sheffield, without feeling that what is now a private grouse-moor must, before many years have passed, become a nationalized park or "reservation"—a playground for the dwellers in the great Midland cities, and a sanctuary for wild animals and plants.
The time will assuredly come when the sport of the few will have to give way to the health and recreation of the many.
Trespassers will be prosecuted.
Thesubject of trespassing mentioned in the preceding chapter, has a very close and personal interest for the adventurous flower-lover; for of all incentives to ignore the familiar notice-board with its hackneyed words of warning, none perhaps is more potent than the possibility that some rare and long-sought wildflower is to be found on the forbidden land. The appeal is one that no explorer can resist. If "stout Cortez" himself, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific, had seen that ocean labelled as "strictly private and preserved," could he have desisted from his quest?
There is moreover a good deal to be said in extenuation of trespassing as a summer recreation; and if landlords go on at their present rate, in closing footpaths and excluding the public from green fields and hedgerows, trespassing will perhaps establish itself as one of our recognized national diversions. Hitherto, it must be confessed, it has remained to some extentin disrepute; doubtless, through its being so largely indulged in by poachers and other evil-doers, who have given a bad name to a practice which in itself is innocent and blameless enough. Most people, especially landlords and gamekeepers, have a fixed belief that a trespasser's purpose must be a lawless and mischievous one. Why so? Is it not possible that some trespassers may have other objects than to steal pheasants' eggs or snare rabbits? If huntsmen when following the hounds are permitted, not only to trespass, but to damage crops and fences, why should the naturalist be molested when harmlessly following his own inclinations in choice of a country ramble. Is the pursuit of the fox a surer proof of honest intentions than the pursuit of natural history? It appears that some landowners think so. "Trespassers will be prosecuted," say the notices that everywhere stare us in the face.
Was there ever such a lying legend? Trespassers willnotbe prosecuted, for the sufficient reason that in English law trespassing is not an offence. Of course, if any injury be done to property, the owner can sue for damages, but a harmless trespasser can only be requested to depart, though, if he be ill-advised enough to refuse to go, he may be forcibly ejected. We see, therefore, that the threatened "prosecution" of trespassers is in reality merely abrutum fulmenlaunched by landlords at a too credulous public, a pious fraud which has been far more efficacious than such kindred notices as"Beware the dog," or "Beware the bull," though these, too, have done good service in their time. Trespassers will not be prosecuted, provided that they do no sort of damage, and that if their presence is objected to they politely retire. With these slight precautions and limitations, a trespasser may go where he will, and enjoy the study of Nature in her most secluded and "strictly private" recesses. He thus himself becomes, in one sense, a lord of the soil; but his domain is far more extensive and unencumbered than that of any actual landlord. He enjoys all that is best in park, woodland, or mountain; and if he is "warned off" one estate he can afford to smile at the prohibition, since many other regions are open to him, and he can confidently look forward to a visit to fresh woods and pastures new on the morrow.
In the course of these rambles the trespasser will probably, like Ulysses, have some curious experiences of men and of notice-boards. It is very instructive to observe the various types of the landlord class, and their different methods of treating the intruder whom they meet on their fields. There is the indignant landlord, who can scarcely conceal his wrath at the astounding audacity of one who is deliberately crossing his land without having come "on business." There is the despairing landlord, who has been so broken by previous invasions that he is now content with a shrug of the shoulders and a remark that the place is "quite private, you know." There is thecourteous landlord, who politely assumes that you have lost your way, and naively offers to conduct you to the high-road by the shortest cut; and there is the mildly ironical, who, as in a case which I remember on a Surrey hillside, remarks as he passes you: "There goes my heather."
I have heard it said that one can sometimes divine the character of a landlord from the wording of his notice-boards, and I believe from my own experiences that there is truth in the idea. Certainly the notice-board is the landlord's favourite method of defending the privacy of his estate, and for obvious reasons; for not only is it the least troublesome and expensive way of conveying the desired warning to would-be trespassers, but the salutary fiction regarding the "prosecution" of offenders is thus publicly and permanently impressed on the agricultural mind. There is not such entire uniformity in the wording of notice-boards as might be supposed. Of course by far the commonest form is the well-known "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be prosecuted as the law directs," in which the unconscious irony contained in the last four words has always struck me as especially delightful. To this is often added the words "and all dogs shot," in which the experienced trespasser will detect signs of a certain roughness and inhumanity of temperament on the part of the owner. More original forms of expression are by no means uncommon. Sometimes the warning is emphasized by the bold statement, indicatingthe possession by the landlord of humorous or imaginative faculties, that "the police have orders to watch." Sometimes, but more rarely, the personal element is boldly introduced, as in the assertion, which might formerly be seen on a notice-board in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Lake District, "This is my land. Trespassers, etc." In some cases the wording has evidently been left to the care of subordinates, and hence result some curiosities of literary composition. "Private. Beware of dogs," is an instance of this kind, in which the ambiguity of the allusion to dogs, whether those of the landlord or the trespasser, seems almost oracular. In these and other ways a certain zest is lent to the excursions or rather theincursions, of the trespasser, which lifts them above the level of ordinary walking exercise.
In the case of wealthy landowners, the duty of warning off the trespasser devolves on gamekeepers, who, being less emotional than their employers, are a far less interesting study. Stolid and furry, and apparently endowed with only the animal instincts of the victims whom they delight in tracking and trapping, they are by far the least intelligent people whom the trespasser encounters; they are, in fact, no better than breathing and walking notice-boards, with the disadvantage that they cannot be so absolutely disregarded. It is unwise to argue with them; for reason is at a discount in such encounters and there is the possibility, in somedistricts, of their having recourse to personal violence, in the knowledge that if the matter should come before local magistrates the keeper's word would be honoured in preference to that of the trespasser. There is a sanctity in the word "Preserve."
An experience of this sort actually befell a friend of mine, who himself narrated it in print. A devoted botanist and nature-lover, he was twice in the same day found trespassing by a gigantic gamekeeper, who, on the second occasion, ended all parley in the manner described in the following "Mystical Ballad," wherein the writer has ventured somewhat to idealize the circumstances, though the story is based on the facts.
A Poet through a haunted woodRoamed fearless and serene,Nor flinched when on his path there stoodA Form in Velveteen."Gaunt Shape, come you alive or dead,My footsteps shall not swerve.""You're trespassing," the Vision said:"This place is a preserve.""How so? Is some dark secret herePreserved? some tale of shame?"The Spectre scowled, but answered clear:"What we preserve is Game."Yet still the Poet's heart was nervedWith Phantoms to dispute:"Then tell me, why is Game preserved?"The Goblin yelled: "To shoot.""But Game that's shot is Game destroyed,Not Game preserved, I ween."It seemed such argument annoyedThat Form in Velveteen;For swift It gripped him, as he spake,And, making light the load,Upheaved, and flung him from the brakeInto the King's high-road.And as that Bard, still arguing hard,High o'er the palings flew,He vows he heard this ghostly word:"We're not preservingyou."
Long time he lay on that highway,Dazed by so weird a fall;Then rose and cried, as home he hied:"The Lord preserve us all!"
I have often thought it was an error on the part of the trespassing poet not to explain to his assailant that he was a botanist; for "botanist," as I can testify, is a blessed word which has a soothing effect upon many of the most irascible landowners or their satellites. Personally I never presume to call myself botanist, except when I am found trespassing, on which occasions I have rarely known it to fail. I recall a Saturday afternoon when, as I was rambling in a Derbyshire dale with Bertram Lloyd, and admiring the flowers, we were accosted by the owner in person, who inquired with a sort of suppressed fury whether we knew that we were on his estate. We said we were botanists, and theeffect was magical; in less than a minute we were courteously permitted to go where we would and stay as long as we liked.
For botany is regarded as a scientific study; and even sportsmen do not like to incur the reproach of being enemies to science. Their better feelings may be conveyed in a familiar Virgilian line:
Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Pœni.[15]
Where the most beautiful wildflowers grow, there man'sspirit is fed.—Thoreau.
A limestonesoil is everywhere rich in flowers—we have seen what the midland dales can produce—but it is especially so in the close neighbourhood of the sea. Two instances suggest themselves; one from a Carnarvonshire promontory, the Orme's Head; the other from Arnside Knott, in Westmorland.
Fifty years ago the Great Orme was a wild and picturesque headland, girdled by a footpath which made a circuit of the beetling cliffs, and crossed by a few other tracks leading to the telegraph station at the summit, St. Tudno's Church, and elsewhere; but in most respects still in a primitive and unimpaired condition. I knew almost every yard of it as a boy; and I remember, among other attractions, a hermit who lived in a cave, and better still a wild cat—probably a fugitive from some Llandudno lodging-house—who had her home in a stack of rocks on the western side of the Head. On the western shore of the isthmus there was at that timeonly one house; it belonged to Dean Liddell, famous as joint author of the Greek dictionary distressfully known to generations of students asLiddell and Scott.
But now, owing to the "development" of Llandudno, this once beautiful foreland has become a place almost of horror, vulgarized by trams, motor-roads, golf-links, and all the appurtenances of "civilization;" and were it not for the wildflowers, it might well be shunned by those who knew it in old days. Flowers, however, are very tenacious of their established haunts, and the remark made in Mr. J. E. Griffith'sFlora of Carnarvonshirestill holds good, that "the flora of this district is quite unique, in consequence of the number of species found here, and the rarity of many of them." The luxuriance of the flowers is indeed a sight which can almost make one forget the "improvements" that have ruined the scenery.
Among the plants inhabiting the rocky banks above the shore are the blue vernal squill, the sea stork's-bill, sweet alyssum, hound's-tongue, hemlock, henbane, mullein, and tree-mallow: to these may be added what constitutes a herb-garden readymade—fennel, wormwood, vervain, white horehound, wild sage, succory, and Alexanders. On the higher cliffs are the curious samphire, pink thrift, white scurvy-grass, and great tufts of sea-cabbage, now rarer and more local than formerly, but here waving its pale yellow pennons in abundance. Most charming of all, the brilliant blood-red crane's-bill, together with two kinds of rock-rose (the hoary dwarf species as well as the common one), makes rich splashes of colour on the grey limestone ledges. A little back from the sea, among the bluffs that overhang the town, you may light upon the sleepy-looking catch-fly (silene nutans); the tiny Hutchinsia; and in one or two places the shrub cotoneaster, which is said to be native only upon the Great Orme. I have, however, seen it growing apparently wild at Capel Curig, and at a greater distance from houses than in its Llandudno station.
Nor is it only the Great Orme that shows this floral wealth: the Little Orme has the rare Welsh stonecrop (sedum Forsterianum); and on another height in the same district, the small circular hill known as Deganwy Rocks, there is a profusion of flowers. When I revisited it a few years ago, not having set foot on it for nearly half a century, I found that the villas of Deganwy had crept up almost to the base of the rocks, and on another side there was—still worse—a camp of German prisoners, with armed sentries supervising their labours; yet even there, close above such scenes, were growing plants which might mark a memorable day in the annals of a flower-lover, notably the maiden pink and the milk-thistle—the "holy" thistle, as it is not inaptly called. The pinks, a lovely band, were sprinkled along the turf at the foot of the rocks; the thistles were almost at the top; between themon a stony ledge nestled a quantity of viper's bugloss, and with it some borage, two kindred plants which I had never before seen in company.
Nearly all the members of the Borage group are interesting—lungwort, alkanet, forget-me-not, hound's-tongue, and bugloss—but the borage itself, a roadside weed in South Europe, and in this country merely an immigrant and "casual," is to me the most precious of all. My earliest recollections of it, I must own, are as an ingredient of claret-cup at Cambridge, its silver-grey stems floating in the wine with a pleasant roughness to the lip; but in those unregenerate days we did not know the real virtue of the herb, famous from old time, as Gerarde says, for its power "to exhilarate and make the mind glad, to comfort the heart, and for driving away of sorrow." And certainly, in another and better use, itdoescomfort the heart and drive sorrow away; for its "gallant blew flowers" are of all blues the loveliest, and the black anthers give it a peculiarly poignant look which reminds one somehow of the wistfulness of a Gainsborough portrait. In the list of my best-beloved flowers it ranks among the highest.
Looking north-east from the Orme's Head, one may see on a clear day, across some sixty miles of water, the limestone hills of Westmorland, reckoned as part of Lakeland, but geologically, botanically, and in general character a quite separate district. Arnside Knott, a bluff overlooking the estuary ofthe river Kent where it widens into Morecambe Bay, is the presiding genius of a tract of shore and forest to which the name of "Lily-land" has been given by Mr. J. A. Barnes in a sketch of Arnside, and which he describes as "a perfect paradise of wildflowers." Let us suppose ourselves transported thither, and see how the claim holds good.
The lily of the valley is one of those favoured plants which are everywhere highly esteemed; even the man who in general cares but little for wildflowers takes this one to his heart, or, what is worse, to his garden. I have already quoted Mr. C. A. Johns's queer appreciation of this native British wildflower as "a universally admired garden plant." On the wooded hill known as Arnside Park the "May lily," as it used to be called (and here it is certainly not "of the valley"), covers many acres of ground, and justifies the title "Lily-land" as applied to the Arnside neighbourhood. What I found still more interesting was an almost equal abundance of the stone bramble (rubus saxatilis), which grows intermixed with the lilies over a large portion of the wood.
On these Westmorland Cliffs, as in those of Carnarvonshire, the blood-red crane's-bill is conspicuous, but it is much less plentiful, nor are the outstanding flowers of the two localities the same. One of the commonest at Arnside is the tall ploughman's spikenard, known locally as "frankincense": and on the lawns that skirt the Knott one oftensees the mountain-cudweed or "cat's-foot," the gromwell or "grey millet," and the beautiful little dwarf orchis. The district is rather rich in orchids; among others, I found the rare narrow-leaved helleborine (cephalanthera ensifolia) in the Arnside woods. The deadly nightshade is frequent; so, too, is the four-leaved herb-Paris, which a resident described to me as being here "almost a weed." But there are two other flowers that demand more special mention.
In a lane near Arnside Tower, a ruin that lies below the Knott on its inland side, there is a considerable growth of green hellebore, apparently at the very spot where its presence was recorded two centuries ago. Though not a very rare plant, it is extremely local; and owing to its strongly marked features, the large palmate leaves and pale green flowers, is not likely to go unnoticed.
But the rarest of Arnside flowers is, or was, another poisonous plant of theranunculusorder, the baneberry, for which the writer of "Lily-land," as he tells us, "hunted for years without success; till its exact locality was at last revealed to me by one who knew, in a situation so obvious that I felt like a man who has hunted through every room in the house for the spectacles on his own nose." Years later, on my certifying that I was not a knight of the trowel, Mr. Barnes was so kind as to confide to me this same secret that had been kept hidden from the uninitiate; but I found that the smallplantation which had been the home of the baneberry, almost within Arnside itself, had recently been cut down, and though a few of the plants were still growing along the side of the field, they had ceased to flower, and possibly by this time they have ceased to exist. Even as it was, I felt myself fortunate to have seen the baneberry in one of its few native haunts. The pale green deeply cut leaves are much handsomer than those of its relatives the hellebore and the monk's-hood. Its raceme of white flowers and its black berries are also known to me; but alas, only in a garden.
Where flowers are concerned, there is little truth in the saying that "comparisons are odious"; on the contrary it is both pleasant and profitable to compare not only plant with plant, but the flora of one fertile district with that of another. The natural scenery of Arnside is yet unspoilt, and for that reason it now offers greater attractions to the nature-lover than the ruined charms of Llandudno; but if he were asked, for botanical reasons only, to choose between a visit to the Orme and a visit to the Knott, the decision might be a less easy one. "How happy could I be with either!" would probably be his thought.
It [rose-root] groweth very plentifully in the north of England, especially in a place called Ingleborough Fels.Gerarde.
It [rose-root] groweth very plentifully in the north of England, especially in a place called Ingleborough Fels.Gerarde.
Thereis a tale by Herman Melville which deals with the strangeness of a first meeting between the inmates of two houses which face each other, far and high away, on opposite mountain ranges, and yet, though daily visible, have remained for years as mutually unknown as if they belonged to different worlds. It was with this story in my mind that I approached for the first time the moorland mass of Ingleborough, long familiar as seen from the Lake mountains, a square-topped height on the horizon to the south-east, but hitherto unvisited by me owing to the more imperious claims of the Great Gable and Scafell. But now, at last, I found myself on pilgrimage to Ingleborough; the impulse, long delayed, had seized me to stand on the summit of the Yorkshire fell, and, looking north-westward, to see the scene reversed.
Another of Ingleborough's attractions was thatit is the home of certain scarce and beautiful flowers, as has been pointed out in Mr. Reginald Farrer's interesting books on Alpine plants. Such exceptional rarities as the baneberry (actæa spicata), which grows among rocky crevices high up on the fell—not to mention thearenaria gothica, choicest of the sandworts—the mere visitor can hardly hope to discover; but there are other and less infrequent treasures upon the hill, beyond which my ambition did not aspire.
As I ascended the barren marshy slopes that form the eastern flank, I realized once again how much more the labour of an ascent depends upon the character of the ground than upon the actual height to be scaled. Ingleborough is under 2,400 feet; yet it is far more toilsome to climb than many a rocky peak in Wales or Cumberland that rises hundreds of feet higher, and it is a relief at length to get a firm foothold on the rocks of millstone grit which form the summit. Thence, from the edges which drop sharply from the flat top, one looks out on the somewhat desolate fells stretching away on three sides—Pen-y-ghent to the east, Whernside to the north, and to the south the more distant forest of Pendle—but westward there is the gleam of sand or water in Morecambe Bay, and the eye hastens to greet the dim but ever glorious forms of the Lakeland mountains.
In the affections of the mountain-lover Ingleborough can never be the rival of one of these; indeed,in the strict sense, it is not a mountain at all, but a high moor built on a base of limestone with a cap of grit. Still, there is grandeur in the steep scarps that guard its central stronghold; and its dark summit, when viewed from a distance crowning the successive tiers of grey terraces, has a strength and wildness of its own, and even suggests at points a likeness to the massive tower of the Great Gable. To one looking down from the topmost edges on the scattered piles of limestone below, the effect is very curious. You see, perhaps, a mile or two distant, what looks at first sight like a flock of sheep at pasture, but is soon discovered to be a stone flock which has no mortal shepherd. In other parts are wide white plateaux which, when visited, turn out to be a wilderness of low flat rocks, everywhere weather-worn and water-worn, scooped and scalloped into cells and basins, and so intersected by channels filled with ferns and grasses that one has to walk warily over it as over a reef at low tide.
But to return to the flowers. At the summit were mossy saxifrage and vernal sandwort; and on the cliffs just below, to the western side, the big mountain stonecrop, rose-root, not unhandsome with its yellow blossoms, flourished in some abundance, even as it did when Gerarde wrote of it, nearly three hundred years ago. The purple saxifrage, an early spring flower, is also found on these rocks, but at the time when I visited the spot, in late June, its blossoming season was over, and nothingwas visible but the leaves. There was little else but some hawkweeds; I turned my attention, therefore, to the flowers of the lower slopes.
There is nothing more delightful, in descending a mountain, than to follow the leading of some rapid beck from its very source to the valley; and it is rather disconcerting, in these limestone regions, that the cavernous nature of the ground should make the presence of the streams so intermittent, and that one's chosen companion should not unfrequently disappear, just when his value is most appreciated, into some "gaping gill" or pot-hole.
It is said of Walt Whitman that sometimes when a pilgrim was privileged to walk with him, and was perhaps thinking that their acquaintance was ripening to friendship, the good grey poet, with a curt nod and a careless "good-bye," would turn off abruptly and be gone. Even so it is with these wayward streams that course down the sides of Ingleborough. Just when one is on the best of terms with them, they vanish and are no more.
But with the bird's-eye primrose tinging hillsides and hollows with its tender hue of pink, no other companionship was needed. A mountain flower, it is the fairest of all thePrimulaceæ, that band of fair sisters to which it belongs—primrose, cowslip, pimpernel, loosestrife, and money-wort—all beautiful and all favourites among young and old alike, whereever there is a love of flowers. It was worth while to make the pilgrimage to Ingleborough, if onlyto see this charming little plant in perfection on its native banks.
Nor were other flowers lacking; the wild geraniums especially were in force. The shining crane's-bill gleamed on the pale limestone ledges; the wood crane's-bill, a local North-country species, gave a glint of purple in the copses at the foot of the fell; and still further down, below the village of Clapham, there were masses of the blue meadow crane's-bill (geranium pratense), the largest and not least handsome of the family. The water-avens was everywhere by the stream sides; and on a bank above the road the gladdon, or purple iris, was opening its dull-tinted flowers.
He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized man.—Emerson.
He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized man.—Emerson.
I havereferred several times to Henry Thoreau, of Concord, in whoseJournala great deal is said about wildflowers; and as the volumes are not easily accessible to English readers it may be worth while to select therefrom a few of the more interesting passages. In all that he wrote on the subject Thoreau appears less as the botanist than the flower-lover; indeed, he expressly observes that he himself comes under the head of the "Botanophilists," as Linnæus termed them; viz. those who record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific standpoint. "I never studied botany," he said, "and do not to-day, systematically; the most natural system is so artificial. I wanted to know my neighbours, if possible; to get a little nearer to them." So great was his zest in cultivating this floral acquaintance that, as he tells us, he often visited a plant four or five miles from Concordhalf a dozen times within a fortnight, in order to note its time of flowering.
Books he found, in general, unsatisfactory. "I asked a learned and accurate naturalist," he says, "who is at the same time the courteous guardian of a public library, to direct me to those works which contained the more particular popular account, orbiography, of particular flowers—for I had trusted that each flower had had many lovers and faithful describers in past times—but he informed me that I had read all; that no one was acquainted with them, they were only catalogued like his books." It was the human aspect of the flower that Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw "pages about some fair flower's qualities as food or medicine, but perhaps not a sentence about its significance to the eye; as if the cowslip were better for 'greens' than for yellows." Thus he complained that botanies are "the prose of flowers," instead of what they ought to be, the poetry. He made an exception, however, in favour of old Gerarde'sHerball.
His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe yourobject in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms!"
His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe yourobject in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms!"
Linnæus, too, "the man of flowers," as he calls him, is praised by Thoreau. "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnæus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with Linnæus."
Thoreau's manner of botanizing was, like most of his habits, somewhat singular. His vasculum was his straw-hat. "I never used any other," he writes, "and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry-table, I assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box." With this vasculum he professed himself more than content.
I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours that arise from the head—at least, if you take a bath—which preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they have had no sprinkling.
I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours that arise from the head—at least, if you take a bath—which preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they have had no sprinkling.
The joy of meeting with a new plant, a sensation known to all searchers after flowers, is more than once mentioned in theJournal: the discovery of a single flower hitherto unknown to him makes him feel as if he were in a wealth of novelties. "Bythe discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed." He notes, too, the not uncommon experience, that a flower, once recognized, is likely soon to be re-encountered. Seeing something blue, or glaucous, in a swamp, he approaches it, and finds it to be theAndromeda polifolia, which had been shown him, only a few days before, in Emerson's collection; now he sees it in abundance. At times he adopts the method of sitting quietly and looking around him, on the principle that "as it is best to sit in a grove and let the birds come to you, so, as it were, even the flowers will come."
Swamps were among Thoreau's favourite haunts: he thinks it would be a luxury to stand in one, up to his chin, for a whole summer's day, scenting the sweet-fern and bilberries. "That is a glorious swamp of Miles's," he remarks; "the more open parts, where the dwarf andromeda prevails. . . . These are the wildest and richest gardens that we have." The fields were less trustworthy, because of the annual vandalism of the mowing. "About these times," he writes in June, "some hundreds of men, with freshly sharpened scythes, make an irruption into my garden when in its rankest condition, and clip my herbs all as close as they can; and I am restricted to the rough hedges and worn-out fields which had little to attract them."
Among Thoreau's best-beloved flowers, if we may judge by certain passages of theJournal, was the large white bindweed (convolvulus sepium), or"morning-glory." "It always refreshes me to see it," he writes; "I associate it with holiest morning hours. It may preside over my morning walks and thoughts." Not less worthily celebrated by him, in another mood, are the wild rose and the water-lily.
We now have roses on the land and lilies on the water—both land and water have done their best—now, just after the longest day. Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water.
We now have roses on the land and lilies on the water—both land and water have done their best—now, just after the longest day. Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water.
It was not Thoreau's practice to pluck many flowers; he preferred, as a rule, to leave them where they were; but he speaks of the fitness of having "in a vase of water on your table the wildflowers of the season which are just blossoming": thus in mid-June he brings home some rosebuds ready to expand, "and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance." At another time the grateful thought of the calamint's scent suffices him: "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my mind to remember its fragrance."
It was characteristic of Thoreau that he loved to renew his outdoor pleasures in remembrance, by pondering over the beautiful things he had witnessed, whether through sight or sound or scent. His mountain excursions were not fully apprehendedby him, until he had afterwards meditated on them. "It is after we get home," he says, "that we really go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the mountain do?" So it was with his flowers: even in the long winter evenings they were still his companions and friends.
I have remembered, when the winter came,High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
How, in the shimmering noon of summer past,Some unrecorded beam slanted acrossThe upland pastures where the johnswort grew.
On a January date we find him writing in hisJournal: "Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." Thus, by memory, his winters were turned into summers, and his flower-seasons were continuous.
The poisoning henbane, and the mandrake dread.Drayton.
Thatthere are felonious as well as philanthropic flowers, plants that are actively malignant in their relation to mankind, has always been a popular belief. The upas-tree, for example, has given rise to many gruesome stories; and the mandrake, fabled to shriek when torn from the ground, has played a frequent part in poetry and legend; not to mention the host of noxious weeds, the "plants at whose names the verse feels loath," as Shelley has it:
And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank.
The felons, however, of whom I would now speak are not the plants that seem merely foul and repulsive, such as the docks and nettles, the broom-rapes, toothworts, and similar ill-looking parasites, but rather the bold bad outlaws and highwaymen, the "gentlemen of the road," who, however deleterious to humanwelfare, have a sinister beauty and distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly described as "the deadly." So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three centuries ago exhorted his readers to "banish these pernicious plants out of your gardens, and all places near to your houses, where children do resort;" and modern writers tell us that the plant is "fortunately" of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and,paceGerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black "wolf-cherries."[16]
Next to the dwale in the nightshade family must rank the henbane, a fallen angel among wildflowers; for its beauty is of the sickly and fetid kind, which at once attracts and repels. It is curious that in the lines from Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" theepithet "dank" should be given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch. Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be "common in waste places," one may visit hundreds of waste places without a glimpse of it. In theFlora of the Lake District(1885) Arnside is given as one of its localities; but I was told by a resident that he had only once seen it there, and then it had sprung up in his garden.
It is in similar places that the thorn-apple, another cousin to the nightshade, is apt to make its un-invited appearance; less a felon, perhaps, than a sturdy rogue and vagabond among flowers of ill repute. A year or two ago, I was told by the holder of an allotment-garden that a great number of thorn-apples were springing up in his ground; and knowing my interest in flowers he sent me a small basketful of the young plants, which, rather to my neighbours' surprise, I set out in a row, like lettuces, in a corner of my back-yard. There they flourished well, and in due course made a fine show with their trumpet-shaped white flowers and the big thorny capsules whence the plant takes its name. It is not a bad-looking fellow, but awkward and hulking, and quite devoid of the sickly grace of the henbane or of the bodeful gloom of the dwale.
Passing now to the handsome but acrid tribe of theranunculi, and omitting the poisonous but interesting baneberry, of which I have already spoken, we come to two formidable plants, the hellebore and the monk's-hood, which have been famous from earliest times for their dangerous propensities. The green hellebore, though in Westmorland named "felon grass," is a less felonious-looking flower than its close kinsman the fetid hellebore, whose general appearance, owing to the crude pale green of its purple-tipped sepals, and the reluctance of its globe-like buds to expand themselves fully, is one of insalubrity and unripeness. But it is a plant of distinction, some two or three feet in height; and as it flowers before the winter is well past, it can hardly fail to arrest attention in the few places where it is to be found: in Arundel Park, in Sussex, it may be seen growing in close conjunction with the deadly nightshade—a noteworthy pair of desperadoes.
The other malefactor of the ranunculus family is the aconite, or monk's-hood, a poisonous but very picturesque flower with deep blue blossoms, which takes its name from the hood-like appearance of the upper sepal. "It beareth," Gerarde tells us, "very fair and goodly blew floures in shape like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would thinke they were of some excellent vertue." A traitor, a masked bandit it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man, "unless it can find in him something else to kill," somedisease, to wit; and thus it holds its place in the pharmacopœia.
The umbellifers include a number of outlaws such as the water-dropworts and cowbane; but among the dangerous members of the tribe there is only one that attains to real greatness, and that of course is the hemlock, a poisoner of old-established renown, as witness the death of Socrates. "Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" is one of the ingredients in the witches' cauldron inMacbeth, and the hemlock's name has always been one to conjure with, which may account for the fact that several kindred, but less eminent plants unlawfully aspire to it, and are erroneously thus classed. But the true hemlock is unmistakable: the stout bloodspotted stem distinguishes it from the lesser crew; its finely cut fernlike leaves are exceedingly beautiful; and it is of stately habit—I have seen it growing to the height of nine feet, or more, in places where the surrounding brushwood had to be overtopped.
Let us give their due, then, to these outlaws of whom I have spoken, these Robin Hoods of the floral world. Bandits and highwaymen they may be; but after all, our woods and waysides would be much duller if they were banished.