Here are cool mosses deep.Tennyson.
WhatThoreau wrote of his Massachusetts swamps is hardly less true of ours; a marsh is everywhere a great allurement for botanists. By a road which crosses a certain Sussex Common there is a church, and close behind the church a narrow swampy piece of ground known as "the great bog," which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words: "Mytemple is the swamp." For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being the home not only of a number of characteristic plants—lesser skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw—but of one of our rarest and most beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old herbalists as the "marsh-felwort."
The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who cross the Common. On the afternoon in early September when I first found the place, a number of children were blackberrying there, and I dreaded every moment to see them turn aside to pick a bunch of the gentians, which doubtless would soon have been thrown aside to wither, as is the fate of so many spring flowers; but though the blue petals were conspicuous in the heather they were left entirely unmolested. For this merciful abstinence there were probably two reasons: one that the flower-picking habit is exhausted before the autumn; the other that the gentians, however beautiful, are not among the recognized favourites—daffodils, primroses, violets, forget-me-nots, and the like—that by long custom have taken hold of the imagination of childhood. Had it been otherwise, this rare little annual could hardly have survived so long.
In botanical usage there seems to be no difference between the terms "marsh" and "bog," nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belongingto a somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of what might be called "Anne-prattle," had so real a love of her subject that her best book,Haunts of the Wild Flowers, affords very agreeable reading. "The distinction between a bog and a marsh," she says, "is simply that the latter is more wet, and that the foot sinks in; while on a bog the soft soil, though it yields to the pressure of the foot, rises again." The definition itself seems hardly to be based onterra firma; but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst, an adventurous botanist "is often rewarded for the temporary chill by the beauty of the plant which he has gathered." That is a consolation which I have not seldom enjoyed.
But a pleasanter name, in my opinion, than either "marsh" or "bog," is one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties generally, viz. "a moss." It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near Penrith, "the foot sank in," and a good deal more than the foot; but the acquaintance then made for the first time with that giant of theranunculusorder, the great spearwort, was sufficient recompense, for who would complain of a wetting when he met with a buttercup four feet in stature?
It so happened, however, that the plant in whose quest I had ventured on the precarious surface of the Newton Regny moss—the great bladderwort—was not to be found on that occasion, though it is reported to make a fine show there in August; possibly, in an early season, it had already finished its flowering, and had sunk, after the inconsiderate manner of its tribe, to the bottom of the pools. Nor did I see its rarer sister, the lesser bladderwort; with whom indeed I have only once had the pleasure of meeting, and that was in a rather awkward place, a deep pond lying close below a railway-bank, and overlooked by the windows of the passing trains, so that I not only had to swim for a flower, but to consult a time-table before swimming, in order to avoid having a "gallery" at the moment when seclusion was desired.
Our North-country "mosses" are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its strange purple blossoms as "dingy"—I allude to that wilder relative of the wild strawberry, the marsh-cinquefoil, which, though rather local, is in habit decidedly gregarious. For several years it had eluded me in a Carnarvonshire valley; until one day, wandering by the riverside, I came upon a swampy expanse where it was growing in hundreds, remarkable both for the deep rusty hueof its petals, and for the large strawberry-like fruit that was just beginning to form.
Apart from the more extensive "mosses," the lower slopes of the mountains, both in Cumberland and Wales, are often rich in flowers unsuspected by the wayfarer, who, keeping to some upland track, sees nothing on either side but bare peaty moors that appear to be entirely barren. And barren in many cases they are. You may wander for miles and not see a flower; then suddenly perhaps, on rounding a rock, you will find yourself in one of these natural gardens in the wilderness, where the ground is pink with red rattle growing so thickly as to hide the grass; or white with spotted orchis, handsomer and in greater abundance than is dreamed of in the south; or, a still more glorious sight, tinged over large spaces with the yellow of the bog-asphodel, a plant which is beautiful in its fruit as well as its flower, for when the blossoms are passed the dry wiry stems turn to deep orange. Sun-dews are everywhere; the quaint and affable butterwort is plastered over the wet rocks; and the marsh St. John's-wort, so unlike the rest of its family that the relationship is not always recognized, is frequent in the spongy pools.
Here and there, a small patch of pink on the grey heath, will be seen the delicate bog-pimpernel, which might take rank as the fairest flower of the marsh, were it not that the diminutive ivy-leaved campanula is also trailing its fairy-like form throughthe wet grasses, among which it might wholly escape notice unless search were made for it. To realize the perfection of its beauty—the exquisite structure of its small green leaves, slender thread-like stems, and bells of palest blue—you must go down on your knees to examine it, however damp the ground; a fitting act of homage to one of the loveliest of Flora's children.
Better cultivation, preceded by improved drainage, is ceaselessly encroaching on our marshlands and lessening the number of their flowers. The charming little cranberry, for instance, once so plentiful that it came to market in wagonloads from the fens of the eastern counties, is now far from common; and our cranberry-tarts have to be supplied from oversea. But much more ravishing than the red berries are the rose-coloured flowers, though they are known to scarcely one in a thousand of the persons familiar with the fruit. I always think with pleasure of the day when I first saw them, on the Whinlatter pass, near Keswick, their small wiry stems creeping on the surface of the swamp, a feast for an epicure's eye. It is under the open air, not under a pie-crust, that such dainties are appreciated as they deserve.
These, then, being some of the many attractions offered by our "mosses," is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a modern "moss-trooper," and ride out over the border in search for such imperishable spoil? His part,indeed, is a much wiser one than that of the old freebooters; for who would risk life in the forcible lifting of other persons' cattle, when at the slight expense to which Anne Pratt alluded—the temporary chill caused by the sinking of his foot in a marsh—he can enrich himself far more agreeably in the manner which I have described?
Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,Thundering o'er Caldron and High Force.Scott.
A firstglance at the bleak and inhospitable moorland of Upper Teesdale would not lead one to suppose that it is famous for its flora. No more desolate-looking upland could be imagined; the great wolds stretch away monotonously, broken only by a few scars that overhang the course of the stream, and devoid of the grandeur that is associated with mountain scenery. No houses are visible, except a few white homesteads that dot the slopes—their whiteness, it is said, being of service to the farmers when they return in late evening from some distant market and are faced with the difficulty of finding their own doors. Its wildness is the one charm of the place; in that it is unsurpassed.
But this bare valley, botanically regarded, is a bit of the far North, interpolated between Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire, where the Teesdale basalt or "whinstone" affords an advanced stationfor many rare plants of the highland type as they trend southward; and there, for five or six miles, from the upper waterfall of Caldron Snout to that of High Force, the banks of the Tees, with the rough pastures, scars, and fells that form its border, hold many floral treasures.
The first flower to attract attention on these wild lawns is that queen of violets, the mountain pansy (viola lutea), not uncommon on many midland and northern heaths, but nowhere else growing in such prodigality as here, or with such rich mingling of colours—orange yellow, creamy white, deep purple, and velvet black—till the eye of the traveller is sated with the gorgeous tints. To the violet tribe this pansy stands in somewhat the same relation as does the bird's-eye primrose to theprimulas; it is a mountain cousin, at once hardier and more beautiful than its kinsfolk of wood and plain. Seeing it in such abundance, we can understand why Teesdale has been described as "the gardener's paradise;" but the expression is not a fitting one, for "gardener" suggests "trowel," and the nurseryman is the sort of Peri to whom the gates of this paradise ought to be for ever closed.
But perhaps the first stroll which a visitor to Upper Teesdale is likely to take, is by the bank of the river just above High Force; and here the most conspicuous plant is a big cinquefoil, thepotentilla fruticosa, a shrub about three feet in height, bearing large yellow flowers. Rare elsewhere, it is in exuberance beside the Tees; and I remember the amused surprise with which a dalesman regarded me, when he saw my interest in a weed that to him was so familiar and so cheap.
But the smaller notabilities of the district have to be personally searched for; they do not obtrude themselves on the wayfarer's glance. On the Yorkshire side of the stream stands Cronkley Scar, a buttress of the high moor known as Mickle Fell; and here, in the wet gullies, may be found such choice northern plants as the Alpine meadow-rue; the Scottish asphodel (Tofieldia), a small relative of the common bog-asphodel; and the curious viviparous bistort, another highland immigrant, bearing a spike of dull white flowers and small bulbs below.
The fell above the scar is a desolate tract, frequented by golden plover and other moorland birds. On one occasion when I ascended it I was overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain, which compelled me to leave the further heights of Mickle Fell unexplored, and to retreat to the less exposed pastures of Widdibank on the opposite side of the Tees, here a broad but shallow mountain stream, which in dry weather can be forded without difficulty but becomes a roaring torrent after heavy rains. In the course of two short visits, one in mid-July, the other in the spring of the following year, I twice had the opportunity of seeing the river in either mood, first in unruffled tranquillity, then in furious spate.
It is in May or early June that Teesdale is at the height of its glory; for the plant which lends it a special renown is the spring gentian, perhaps the brightest jewel among all British flowers, small, but a true Alpine, and of that intense blue which signalizes the gentian race. Here this noble flower grows in plenty, not in wide profusion like the pansies, but in large and thriving colonies, not confined to one side of the stream. It was on the Durham bank that I first saw it—one of those rare scenes that a flower-lover cannot forget, for the blue gentians were intermingled with pink bird's-eye primroses, only less lovely than themselves, and close by were a few spikes of the Alpine bartsia, whose sombre purple was in marked contrast with the brilliant hues of its companions.
Of this rare bartsia I had plucked a single flower on my previous visit to the same spot, but then in somewhat hurried circumstances. I had been crossing the wide pastures near Widdibank farm in company with a friend, who, having heard rumours of the temper of Teesdale bulls, had unwisely allowed his thoughts to be somewhat distracted from the pansies. We were in the middle of a field of vast extent, when I heard my companion asking anxiously: "Isthatone?" It certainlywasone; not a pansy, but a bull; and he was advancing towards us with very unfriendly noises and gestures. We therefore retired as quickly as we could, without seeming to run—he slowly following us—in the direction of theriver; and there, under a high bank, over which we expected every moment the bulky head to reappear, I saw the Alpine bartsia, and stooped to pick one as we fled, my friend mildly deprecating even so slight a delay.
Now, however, on my second visit, I was able to examine the bank at my leisure, and to have full enjoyment of as striking a group of flowers as could be seen on English soil—gentian, bird's-eye primrose, Alpine bartsia—and as if these were not sufficient, the mountain pansy running riot in the pasture just above.
So far, I have spoken only of the plants which I myself saw; there are other and greater rarities in Teesdale which the casual visitor can hardly expect to encounter. The yellow marsh-saxifrage (S. hirculus) occurs in two or three places on the slopes of Mickle Fell; so, too, in limestone crevices does the mountain-avens (dryas octopetala), and the winter-green (pyrola secunda); while on Little Fell, which lies further to the south-west, towards Appleby, the scarce Alpine forget-me-not is reported to be plentiful. I was told by a botanist that, in crossing the moors from Teesdale to Westmorland, he once picked up what he took for a fine clump of the common star-saxifrage, and afterwards found to his surprise that it was the Alpine snow-saxifrage (S. nivalis), which during the past thirty years has become exceedingly rare both in the Lake District and in North Wales.
The haunts of the rarer flowers are not likely to be discovered in a day or two, nor yet in a week or two: it is only to him who has gone many times over the ground that such secrets will disclose themselves; but even the passing rambler must be struck, as I was, by the number of noteworthy plants that Teesdale wears, so to speak, upon its sleeve. The globe-flower revels in the moist meadows; so, too, do the water-avens and the marsh-cinquefoil, nor is the butterfly orchis far to seek; and though the yellow marsh-saxifrage may remain hidden, there is no lack of the yellow saxifrage of the mountain (saxifraga aizoides), to console you, if it can, for the absence of its rarer cousin. The cross-leaved bedstraw (galium boreale), another North-country plant, luxuriates on low wet cliffs by the river.
Last, but not least, in the later months of summer, is the mountain thistle (carduus heterophyllus), or the "melancholy thistle" as it is often called—a title which seems to have small relevance, unless all plants of a grave and dignified bearing are to be so named. Do men expect to gather figs of thistles, that they should demand the simple gaiety of the cowslip or the primrose from such a plant as this, whose rich purple flowers, spineless stem, and large parti-coloured leaves—deep green above, white below—mark it as one of the most handsome, as it is certainly the most gracious and benevolent of its tribe?
As I walked down the valley, on a wet morningin July, to take train at Middleton, twenty-four hours of rain had turned the river through which I had easily waded on the previous day, into a flood that was terrifying both in aspect and sound. It was no time for flower-hunting; but even then the wonders of the place were not exhausted; for along the hedgerows I saw in plenty that same stately thistle, which in most districts where it occurs is viewed with some interest and curiosity, but in Teesdale is a roadside weed—subject, I was shocked to observe, to the insolence of the passers-by, who, knowing not what they do, maltreat it as if it were some vulgar pest of the fields, a thing to be hacked at and trampled on. Even so, I saw in it a discrowned king, who "nothing common did or mean."
It is Easter Sunday . . . the hills are high, and stretch away to heaven.—De Quincey.
It is Easter Sunday . . . the hills are high, and stretch away to heaven.—De Quincey.
Sowrote De Quincey in one of his finest dream-fugues. There seems, in truth, to be a certain fitness in the turning of men's thoughts at the spring season to the heights of the mountains, where, as nowhere else, the cares and ailments of the winter time are forgotten; and it is a noticeable fact that these upland districts are now as thronged with visitors during Easter week as in August itself. As I write, I am sitting by a wood fire under a high rock in a sheltered nook at Capel Curig, with a biting north-easter blowing overhead and an occasional snow-squall whitening the hillsides around, while the upper ridges are covered in places with great fields and spaces of snow, which at times loom dim and ghostly through the haze, and then gleam out gloriously in the interludes of sunshine. The scenery at the top of Snowdon, the Glyders, Carnedd Llewelyn, and the other giants of the district has been quite Alpine in character. Thewind has drifted the snow in great pillowy masses among the rocks, or piled it in long cornices along the edges, and on several days when the air was at its keenest, the snow fields have been crisp and firm, and have afforded excellent footing as a change from the rough "screes" and crags; at other times, when the sun has shone out warmly, the snow has been soft and treacherous, and the spectacle has often been seen of the too trustful tourist struggling waistdeep.
Mid-April in Snowdonia, when March has been cold and wet, shows scarcely an advance from midwinter as far as the blossoming of flowers is concerned. Down by the coast the land is gay with gorse and primroses, but in the bleak upland dales that radiate from the great mountains hardly a bloom is to be seen; nor do the river banks and marshy pastures as yet show so much as a kingcup, a spearwort, or a celandine. The visitors have come in their multitudes to walk, to climb, to cycle, to motor, to take photographs, or to take fish, as the case may be; but if one of them were to confess that he had come to look for flowers he would indeed surprise the natives—still more if he were to point to the upper ramparts of the mountains, among the rocks and snows and clouds, as the place of his design.
Yet it is there that we must climb, if we would see the pride of the purple saxifrage, the earliest of our mountain flowers, blest by botanists with the cumbrous name ofsaxifraga oppositifolia, andoften grown by gardeners, who know it as a Swiss immigrant, but not as a British native. A true Alpine, it is not found in this country much below 2,000 feet, and in Switzerland its range is far higher, for it is a neighbour and a lover of the snows. Small and slight as it may seem, when compared with some of its more splendid brethren of the Alps, it has the distinction of a high-bred race, the character of the genuine mountaineer. It is a wearer of the purple, in deed as well as in name.
But our approach to the home of the saxifrage is not to be accomplished without toil, in weather which is a succession of boisterous squalls. Under such a gale we have literally to push our way in a five-mile walk to the foot of the hills, and as we climb higher and higher up the slopes we have a ceaselesstussle with the strong, invisible foe who buffets us from every side in turn, while he hisses against the sharp edges of the crags, or growls with dull subterranean noises under the piles of fallen rocks. As for the streams, they are blown visibly out of their steep channels and carried in light spray across the hillside, while sheets of water are lifted from the surface of the lake. Not till we reach the base of the great escarpment which forms the north-east wall of the mountain are we able to draw breath in peace; for there, under the topmost precipices, flecked with patches of snow, is a strange and blissful calm. But now, just when our search begins, the mists, which have long been circling overhead, creepdown and fill the upland hollow where we stand, cutting off our view not only of the valley below but of the range of cliffs above, and confining us in a sequestered cloudland of our own. Still climbing along a line of snowdrifts which follows a ridge of rocks, and which serves at once as a convenient route for an ascent and a safe guide for a return, we scan the likely-looking corners and crevices for the object of our pilgrimage. At first in vain; and then fears begin to assail us that we may be doomed to disappointment. Can we have come too early, even for so early a plant, in a backward season? Or have some wandering tourists or roving knights of the trowel (for such there are) robbed the mountain-side of its gem—for this saxifrage, owing to the brightness of its petals on the grey and barren slopes, is so conspicuous as to be at the mercy of the passer-by.
But even as we stand in doubt there is a gleam of purple through the mist, and yonder, on a boss of rock, is a cluster of the rubies we have come not to steal but to admire. What strikes one about the purple saxifrage, when seen at close quarters, its many bright flowerets peering out from a cushion of moss, is the largeness of the blossoms in proportion to the shortness of the stems; a precocious, wide-browed little plant, it looks as if the cares of existence at these wintry altitudes had given it a somewhat thoughtful cast. At a distance it makes a splash of colour on the rocks, and from the high cliffs aboveit hangs out, here and there, in tufts that are fortunately beyond reach.[17]
Having paid our homage to the flower, we leave it on its lofty throne among the clouds, and descend by snow-slopes and scree-slides to the windy, blossomless valley beneath. A month hence, when the season of the Welsh poppy, the globe-flower, and the butterwort is beginning, the reign of the purple saxifrage will be at an end. To be appreciated as it deserves, it must be seen not as a poor captive of cultivation, but in its free, wild environment, among the remotest fastnesses of the mountains.
The wild animal life on the hills, so noteworthy in the later spring, seems as yet to have hardly awakened. We saw a white hare one afternoon on Carnedd Llewelyn, but that was the only beast of the mountains that crossed our path during eight days' climbing, nor were the birds so numerous as might have been expected. The croak of the raven was heard at times, in his high breeding-places, and on another occasion there was a triple conflict in the air between a raven, a buzzard, and a hawk. On the lower moorlands the curlew was beginning to arrive from his winter haunts by the seashore, and small flocks of gulls, driven inland by the winds, were hovering over the waters of Llyn Ogwen, where we saw several of them mobbing a solitary heron, who seemed much embarrassed by their onslaught,until he succeeded in getting his great wings into motion.
But if bird-life is still somewhat dormant in these lofty regions, there have been plenty of human migrants on the wing. From our high watch-tower, we saw daily, far below us, the long line of motorists—those terrestrial birds of prey—speeding along the white roads, and flying past a hundred entrancing spots, as if their object were to see as little as possible of what they presumably came to see. Flocks of cyclists, too, were visible here and there, avoiding the cars as best they could, and drinking not so much "the wind of their own speed," in the poet's words, as the swirl and dust of the motors; while on the bypaths and open hillsides swarmed the happier foot-travellers, pilgrims in some cases from long distances over the mountains, or skilled climbers with ropes coiled over their shoulders and faces set sternly towards some beetling crag or black gully in the escarpment above. In one respect only are they all alike—that they are birds of passage and are here only for the holiday. Soon they will be gone, and then the ancient silence will settle down once more upon the hills, and buzzard and raven will be undisturbed, until July and August bring the great summer incursion.
I gazed, and gazed, but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought.Wordsworth.
Thereis no more inspiring pastime than flower-gazing under the high crags of Snowdon. The love of flowers reveals a new and delightful aspect of the mountain life, and leads its votaries into steeps and wilds which, as they lie aloof from the usual ways of the climber, might otherwise escape notice. It must be owned that our Cumbrian and Cambrian hills are not rich in flowers as Switzerland is rich; one cannot here step out on the mountain-side and see great sheets of colour, as on some Alpine slope; and not only must we search for our treasures, but we must knowwhereto search. They do not grow everywhere; much depends on the nature of the soil, much on the altitude, much on the configuration of the hills. There are great barren tracts which bear little but heather and bilberry; but there are rarer beds of volcanic ash and calcareous rock which are a joy to the heart of the flower-lover.[18]
Again, one is apt to think that on those heights, where the winter is long and severe, it is the southern flanks that must be the haunt of the flowers; in reality, it is the north-east side that is the more favoured, owing to the fact that the hills, in both districts, for the most part rise gently from the south or the south-west, in gradual slopes that are usually dry and wind-swept, while northward and eastward they fall away steeply in broken and water-worn escarpments. It is here, among the wet ledges and rock-faces, constantly sprayed from the high cliffs above, where springs have their sources, that the right conditions of shade and moisture are attained; and here only can the Alpines be found in any abundance. The precipices of Cwm Idwal and Cwm Glas, in Wales, and in the Lake District the east face of Helvellyn, may stand as examples of such rock-gardens.
The course of a climber is usually along the top of the ridge, that of the botanist at its base; his paradise is that less frequented region which may be called the undercliff, where the "screes" begin to break away from the overhanging precipice, and where, in the angle thus formed, there is often a little track which winds along the hillside, sometimesrising, sometimes falling, but always with the cliff above and the scree-slope below. Following this natural guidance he may scramble around the base of the rocks, or along their transverse ledges, and feast his eyes on the many mountain flowers that are within sight, if not within reach.
It is a fine sport, this flower-gazing; not only because all the plants are beautiful and many of them rare, but because it demands a certain skill to balance oneself on a steep declivity, while looking upward, through binoculars, at some attractive clump of purple saxifrage, or moss-campion, or thrift, or rose-root, or globe-flower, as the case may be.[19]To the veteran rambler especially, this flower-cult is congenial; for it supplies—I will not say an excuse for not going to the top, but a less severe and exacting diversion, which still takes him into the inmost solitudes of the mountain, and keeps him in unfailing touch with its character and genius.
I have spoken of Snowdonia in the spring; let us view it now in the fulness of June or July, when its flora is at its richest. It is not till you have climbed to a height of about two thousand feet that the true joys of the mountains begin. At first, perhaps, as you follow the course of the stream you will see nothing more than a bunch of whitescurvy-grass or a spray of golden-rod; but when you reach the region where the thin cascade comes sliding down over the moist rocks, and the topmost cliffs seem to impend, then you will have your reward, for you have entered into the kingdom of the Alpines.
Suppose, for example, that you stand at the foot of the narrow ridge of Crib-y-Ddysgl, a great precipice which overhangs the upper chambers of Cwm Glas on the northern side of Snowdon, with an escarpment formed of huge slabs of rock intersected by wet gullies, narrow niches, and transverse terraces of grass. Looking up, to where the Crib towers above, you will see a goodly array of plants. Thrift is there, in large clumps as handsome as on any sea-cliffs; rose-root, the big mountain-stonecrop; cushions of moss-campion, which bears the local name of "Snowdon pink"; lady's-mantle, intermixed with the reddening leaves of mountain-sorrel; Welsh poppy, not so common a flower in Wales as its name would suggest; and at least three kinds of beautiful white blossoms—the starry saxifrage, the mossy saxifrage, and the shapely little sandwort (arenaria verna), as fair as the saxifrages themselves, and what higher praise could be given? The flower-lover can scarcely hope for greater delight than that which the starry saxifrage will yield him. It has been well said that "one who has not seen it growing, say, in some rift of the rock exposed by the wearing of the mountain torrent, cannot imaginehow lovely it is, or how fitly it is named. White and starry, and saxifrage—how charming must that which has three such names be!"[20]
Another lofty rock-face, similar in its flora to that of Snowdon, is the precipice at the head of Cwm Idwal, near the point where it is broken by the famous chasm of the Devil's Kitchen. Hereabouts is the chief station of theLloydia, or spiderwort, a rather rare and pretty Alpine, a delicate lily of the high rocks, bearing solitary white flowers veined with red, and a few exceedingly narrow leaves that resemble the legs of a spider. Unlike most mountain plants, it has a considerable local reputation; and during its short flowering season in June one may observe small parties of enthusiasts from Bangor or Carnarvon, diligently scanning the black cliffs above Llyn Idwal, in the hope of spying it. The place where I first saw theLloydiain blossom was Cwm Glas; but I had previously noticed its long thin leaves in two or three places around the Devil's Kitchen.
The haunts of the Alpine meadow-rue (thalictrum alpinum) are similar to those of the spiderwort; and a most elegant little plant it is, its gracefully drooping terminal cluster of small yellowish flowers being borne on a simple naked stem, whereas its less aristocratic relative, the smaller meadow-rue (t. collinum), which is much commoner on these rocks, is bushier and more branched. I had many disappointments, before I rightly apprehended the trueAlpine species; once distinguished, it cannot again be mistaken.
It was to a chance meeting in Ogwen Cottage, at the foot of Cwm Idwal, with Dr. Lloyd Williams, a skilled botanist who had brought a party of friends to visit the home of theLloydia, that I owed my introduction to another very beautiful inhabitant of those heights, the white mountain-avens, known to rock-gardeners asdryas octopetala. Happy is the flower-gazer who has looked on the galaxy, the "milky way," of those fair mountain nymphs—for the plant is in truth an oread rather than a dryad—where they shed their lustre from certain favoured ledges in a spot which it is safer to leave unspecified. I must have passed close to the place many scores of times, in the forty or more years during which I had known the mountain; yet never till then did I become aware of the treasure that was enshrined in it!
But of all the glories of Cwm Idwal—rarities apart—the greatest, when the summer is at its prime, is the array of globe-flowers. This splendid buttercup usually haunts the banks of mountain streams, or the sides of damp woods, in the West country and the North; its range is given in theFlora of the Lake Districtas not rising above nine hundred feet; but in Snowdonia, not content to dwell with its cousins the kingcups and spearworts in the upland valleys, it aspires to a far more romantic station, and is seen blooming in profusion at twiceand almost three times that height on the most precipitous rock-ledges.[21]One may gaze by the hour, enraptured, and never weary of the sight.
I have by no means exhausted the list of notable Snowdonian flowers that are native in the two localities of which I have spoken, or in a few other spots that are similarly favoured by geological conditions: the sea-plantain, the mountain-cudweed, the stone-bramble, the queer little whitlow-grass with twisted pods (draba incana), its still rarer congener the Alpine rock-cress, and theSaussurea, or Alpine saw-wort—all these, and more, are to be found there by the pilgrim who devotedly searches the scriptures of the hills. But of theSaussureasome mention will have to be made in the next chapter; for it is now time to turn from Cambria to Cumbria, from the "cwms" and "cribs" of Snowdon to the "coves" and "edges" of Helvellyn.
I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.Scott.
Sofar I have spoken more of the Welsh mountain flowers than of those belonging to Lakeland; but the difference between the two districts, in regard to their respective floras, is not very great, and with a few exceptions the plants that are native on the one range may be looked for on the other. TheLloydiais found in Snowdonia only; and Wales can boast, not a monopoly, but a greater plenty of the moss-campion and the purple saxifrage. On the other hand, the Alpine lady's-mantle and the yellow mountain-saxifrage, both abundant in Cumberland, are absent from Carnarvonshire; and this is somewhat of a loss, for the common lady's-mantle, charming though it is, lacks the beauty of the Alpine, and the yellow saxifrages, as they hang from the rocks like a phalanx of tiny golden shields—each with bright petals and pale green sepals radiating from a central boss—are among the greatest ornaments of the fells.
Again, the lovely little bird's-eye primrose is a North-country plant which is not found in Wales; against which may be set, perhaps, that gem of the damp mosses on certain Welsh streamsides, the ivy-leaved bell-flower. More characteristic of Lakeland than of Snowdonia, though not peculiar to it, are those two very beautiful flowers, the one a child of the swamp, the other of the high pastures, the grass of Parnassus, and the mountain-pansy; and to conclude the list, the snow-saxifrage and the mountain-avens are about equally rare in both countries—the avens, indeed, is confined to one or two stations, where fortunately it is little known.
Helvellyn, as a mountain, is very inferior to Snowdon, nor indeed can it compete in grandeur with its own Cumbrian neighbours, the Great Gable and Scafell; but among visitors to the Lakes it has nevertheless an enduring reputation, largely due to the poems in which Scott and Wordsworth have sung its praises. Accordingly, during the tourist season, the anxious question: "Is that Helvellyn?" may often be overheard; and on a fine day all sorts of incongruous persons may be seen making their way up the weary slopes that lead from Grasmere to its crest. I once observed a gentleman in a top-hat toiling upward in the queue; on another occasion I witnessed at the summit a violent quarrel between a married couple, the point of dispute (on which they appealed to me) being whether their little dogwas, or was not, in danger of being blown over the cliffs. As the west wind was certainly very strong, and Helvellyn had already been associated with the story of a dog's fidelity, I ventured to advise a retreat.
On the east side, however, where its "dark brow" overlooks the Red Tarn, and throws out two great lateral ridges—on the right, in De Quincey's words, "the awful curtain of rock called Striding Edge," and Swirrel Edge on the left—Helvellyn is a very fine mountain, and what is more to the present purpose, is botanically the most interesting of all the Lakeland fells. From Grisedale Tarn to Keppelcove, a distance of full three miles, that great escarpment, with the several "coves" that nestle beneath it, is the home of many rare Alpine flowers, corresponding in that respect with the Welsh rock-faces of Idwal and Cwm Glas; and though it does not offer so conspicuous a display, or such keen inducements to flower-gazing, a search along its narrow ledges, and under the impending crags, home of the hill fox, will seldom disappoint the adventurer.
Some years ago I spent a week of July, in two successive seasons, at Patterdale, for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the mountain flowers, but on both occasions the weather was very stormy and made it difficult to be on the fells. At first I searched chiefly under Striding Edge and the steep front of Helvellyn, among the rocks thatlie behind the Red Tarn, and in similar places above Keppelcove Tarn in the adjoining valley, hoping with good luck to light on the snow-saxifrage. In this I was unsuccessful; but I twice found a plant I had not hitherto met with—in appearance a small spineless thistle, with a cluster of light-purple scented flowers—which proved to be the Alpine saw-wort, orSaussurea, and which in later years I saw again on Snowdon. A blossom which I picked and kept for several months was so little affected by its separation from the parent stem that it continued its vital processes in a vase, and passed from flowering to seeding without interruption. Like the orpine, it was a veritable "live-long," or as the politicians say, "die-hard."
At Patterdale I was so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Mr. Robert Nixon, a resident who has had a long and intimate knowledge of the local flora; and he very kindly devoted a day to showing me some of his flower-haunts on Helvellyn. In the course of this expedition, one of the pleasantest in my memory, a number of interesting plants were noted by us: among them the mountain-pansy; the cross-leaved bedstraw; the vernal sandwort; the Alpine meadow-rue; the moss-campion; the purple saxifrage, now past flowering; the mountain willow-herb (epilobium alsinifolium), not the true Alpine willow-herb, but a native of similar places among the higher rills; and thesalix herbacea, or "least willow," the smallest of British trees, whichwhen growing on the bare hill-tops is not more than two inches in height, though in the clefts of rock at the edge of the main escarpment we found it of much larger size.
The moss-campion (silene acaulis) is especially associated with the locality of which I am speaking—the neighbourhood of Grisedale Tarn—and is mentioned in the "Elegiac Verses," composed by Wordsworth "near the mountain track that leads from Grasmere through Grisedale":
There cleaving to the ground, it lies,With multitude of purple eyes,Spangling a cushion green like moss.
To this the poet added in a note: "This most beautiful plant is scarce in England. The first specimen I ever saw of it, in its native bed, was singularly fine, the tuft or cushion being at least eight inches in diameter. I have only met with it in two places among our mountains, in both of which I have since sought for it in vain." The other place may have been the hill above Rydal Mount; for a contributor to theFlora of the Lake Districtstates that it was there shown to him by Wordsworth. The poet's knowledge of the higher mountains, and of the mountain flora, was not great. The moss-campion though local, is much less rare than he supposed, and its "cushions" grow to a far larger bulk than that of the one described by him. In hisHolidays on High Lands(1869),Hugh Macmillan, paying tribute to the beauty of this flower, remarks that "a sheet of it last summer on one of the Westmorland mountains measured five feet across, and was one solid mass of colour." I have seen it approaching that size in Wales.
Another plant which I was anxious to see was the Alpinecerastium(mouse-ear chickweed), said to grow "sparingly" on the crags of Striding Edge and in a few other places. I failed to find it; but when Mr. Nixon had pointed out to me, in a photograph of the Edge, a particular crag on which he had noticed the flower in a previous summer, I determined to renew the search. This the weather prevented; but in the following year, happening to be in Borrowdale in June, I walked from Keswick to the top of Helvellyn, and thence descended to Striding Edge, where, on the very rock indicated by Mr. Nixon, I found the object of my journey—not yet in flower, for I was somewhat ahead of its season, but authenticated ascerastium alpinumby the small oval leaves covered with dense white down. I have several times seen, high up on Carnedd Llewelyn, a form ofcerastiumwith larger flowers than the common kind; this I think must have been what is calledc. alpestrein theFlora of Carnarvonshire; but the truealpinum, though frequent in the Scottish highlands, is decidedly rare in Wales.
Even when the summer is far spent, there is hope for the flower-lover among these mountains, especiallyif he penetrate into one of those deep fissures—more characteristic of the Scafell range than of Helvellyn—known locally as "gills": I have in mind the upper portion of Grain's Gill, near the summit of the Sty Head Pass, where, on an autumn day, one may still see, on either bank of the chasm, a goodly array of flowers. Most prevalent, perhaps, are the satiny leaves of the Alpine lady's-mantle, which is extraordinarily abundant in this part of the Lake District, and forms a thick green carpet on many of the slopes. Against this background stand out conspicuously tall spires of golden-rod, rich cushions of wild thyme, and clumps of white sea-campion, a shore plant which, like thrift, sea-plantain, and scurvy-grass, seems almost equally at home on the heights. There, too, are the mountain-sorrel, and rose-root; butterworts, with leaves now faded to a sickly yellow; tufts of harebell, northern bedstraw and hawkweed; stout stalks of angelica; and, best of all, festoons of yellow saxifrages, beautiful even in their decay.
I hearing get, who had but ears,And sight, who had but eyes before;I moments live, who lived but years.Thoreau.
Inflower-seeking, as in other sports and sciences, the unexpected is always happening; there are rich days and poor days, surprises and disappointments; the plant which we hailed as a rarity may prove on examination to be but a gay deceiver; and contrariwise, when we think we have come home empty-handed, it may turn out that the vasculum contains some unrecognized treasure; as when, after what seemed to be a barren day on Helvellyn, I found that I had brought back with me the Alpine saw-wort.
That in the study of flowers, as in all natural history, we should be more attracted by the rare than by the common is inevitable; it is a tendency that cannot be escaped or denied, but it may at least be kept within bounds, so that familiarity shall not breed the proverbial contempt, nor raritya vulgar and excessive admiration.[22]The quest for the rare, provided that it does not make us forget that the common is often no less beautiful, or lead to that selfish acquisitiveness which is the bane of "collecting," is a foible harmless in itself and even in some cases useful, as inciting us to further activities.
The sulphur-wort, or "sea hog's-fennel," for instance, is not especially attractive—a big coarse plant, five feet in stature, with a solid stem, uncouth masses of grass-like leaves, and large umbels of yellow flowers—yet I have a gratifying recollection of a visit which I once paid to its haunts on the Essex salt marshes near Hamford Water. Again, the twisted-podded whitlow-grass is a rather shabby-looking little crucifer; but the day when I found it under the crags of Snowdon in Cwm Glas stands out distinguished and unforgotten. It is natural that we should observe more closely what there are fewer opportunities of observing.
Let me speak first of the barren days. An old friend of mine who is of an optimistic temperament once assured me for my comfort, that the flower-seeker must not feel discouraged if he fail in his pursuit; since it is not from mere success, but from the effort itself, that benefit is derived. The textshould run, not "Seek, and ye shall find," but, "Seek, and ye shall notneedto find." This may be a true doctrine, but it seems rather a hard one; certainly it is not easy, at the time, to regard with entire complacency the result of a blank day; and that there will be blank days is beyond doubt, for it is strange how long some of the "wanted" plants, the De Wets of the floral world, will evade discovery. I have looked into the face of many hundreds of star-saxifrages on the hills of Wales and Cumberland, but have never yet set eyes upon its rare sister, the snow or "clustered" saxifrage. In like manner among the innumerable flowers of the chalk fields, in the South, that elusive little annual, the mouse-tail, has hitherto remained undetected. So, too, with many other rarities: the list of the found may increase year by year, but that of theunfound is never exhausted.
It is well that it is so, and that satiety cannot chill the ardour of the flower-lover, but like Ulysses, "always roaming with a hungry heart," he has ever before him an object for his pursuit. "Wretched is he," says Rousseau, "who has nothing left to wish for." Nor is the reward a merely figurative one, such as that of the husbandmen in the fable, who, after digging the ground in search of a buried treasure, were otherwise recompensed; for the lean days are happily interspersed with the fat days, and to the botanist there is surely no joy on earth like that of discovering a flower that is new to him;it is a thrilling event which compensates tenfold for all the failures of the past.
Very remarkable, too, is the freakishness of fortune, which often, while denying what you crave, will toss you something quite different and unlooked for: I remember how when searching vainly for the spider orchis at the foot of the Downs in Kent, I stumbled on an abundance of the "green man." Or perhaps, just at the moment when you are relinquishing the quest as hopeless, and have put it wholly from your mind, you will be startled to see the very flower that you sought.
Burningly it came on me all at once!
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,After a life spent training for the sight!
As Thoreau expressed it: "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner."
But the great days! I have sometimes fancied that in those enterprises which are to mark the finding of a new flower, one has an inner anticipation, a sense of hopefulness and quiet satisfaction that on ordinary occasions is lacking. But this assurance must be an instinctive one; it is useless to affect a confidence that does not naturally arise; for though perseverance is essential, any presumptuous attempt to forestall a favourable issue will only lead to discomfiture. Then at last, when the goal isreached, comes the devotee's reward—the knowledge that is won only by attainment, the ecstasy, the moments that are better than years. In this, as in much else, the search for flowers is symbolic of the search for truth.
Nothing, as they say, succeeds like success; and there are times, in this absorbing pursuit, when one piece of good fortune is linked closely with another. I shall not easily forget that day on Snowdon, when, after meeting for the first time with the Alpine meadow-rue, I almost immediately saw my first spiderwort some ten feet above me on the rocky cliff, and reached it by building a cairn of stones against the foot of the precipice to serve me as a ladder.
Among the great days that have fallen to my lot while following the call of the wildflower, one other shall be mentioned—a fair September afternoon when I had wandered for miles about the wide pastures that border the Trent, in what seemed to be a fruitless search for the meadow-saffron. Already it was time to turn on my homeward journey, when I struck into a field from which hay had been carried in the summer; and there, scattered around in large clusters of a score or more together, some lilac, some white, all with a satiny translucence in the warm sunshine which gave them an extraordinary and fairy-like charm, were hundreds of the leafless "autumn crocuses," as they are called, though in fact the flower is more lovely andethereal than any crocus of the garden. Not the day only, but the place itself was glorified by them; and now of all those spacious but rather desolate Nottinghamshire river-meadows, I remember only that one spot:
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own,And a certain use in the world, no doubt;Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone,'Mid the blank miles round about.
Nor are all the great days necessarily of that strenuous sort where success can only be achieved by effort; for there are some days which may also be called great, or at least memorable, when one attains by free gift of fortune to what might long have been searched for in vain. I refer to those happy occasions when a friend says: "Look here! I'd like to show you that field where the elecampane grows," or, it may be, the habitat (the only one in England) of the spring snowflake; or the place on Wansfell Pike where the mountain-twayblade lies hidden beneath the heather. Such things have befallen me now and then; nor am I likely to forget the day when Bertram Lloyd took me to the haunt of the creeping toadflax in Oxfordshire; or when, with Sydney Olivier for guide, I emerged from the aisles of Wychwood Forest on to some rough grassy ground, where in company with meadow crane's-bill, clustered bell-flower, and woolly-headed thistle, the bluesalvia pratensiswas flourishing in glorious abundance.
For recollection plays a large part in the flower-lover's enjoyment. Wordsworth and his daffodils are but a trite quotation; yet many hearts besides Wordsworth's have filled with pleasure at the memory of a brave array of flowers, or even of a single gallant plant seen in some wild locality by mountain, meadow, or shore. The great days were not born to be forgotten.
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Thegreat days were not born to be forgotten. It is well that memory should come to the aid of the flower-lover; for none is more deserving of such comfort than he, keeping constant watch as he does over the transitoriness of the seasons, and having prescience of the summer's departure while summer is still at its height.
Sometimes a late autumnal thoughtHas crossed my mind in green July.
It is in the prime of the year that such intimations of mortality are keenest; when the "fall" itself has arrived, there is less of regret than of resignation. I do not know where the tranquil grief for parted loveliness is so tenderly expressed as in a fragmentary poem of Shelley's, "The Zucca," which, though little known by the majority of readers, contains some of the most poignant, most Shelleyan verses ever written. The poet relates how when the Italian summer was dead, and autumn was in turn expiring,he went forth in grief for the decay of that ideal beauty—"dim object of my soul's idolatry"—of which he, above all men, was the worshipper, and in this mood of sadness found the withered gourd which was the subject of his song.
And thus I went lamenting, when I sawA plant upon the river's margin lie,Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law.And in despair had cast him down to die.
There is a fitness in such imagery; for flowers seem to serve naturally as emblems of human emotions. Who has not felt the pathos of a faded blossom kept as a memorial of the past? Many years ago I was given a beautifully bound copy of Moxon's edition ofShelley; and when I noticed that opposite that loveliest of poems, "Epipsychidion," were a few pink petals interleaved, I was sure that their presence at such a page was not merely accidental; and it has since been a whim of mine that those tokens of some bygone incident in the life of a former owner of the book should not be displaced.
There are vicissitudes in human lives with which flowers become associated in our thoughts. I recall a calm autumn day spent in company with a friend upon the Surrey Downs, when the marjoram and other fragrant flowers of the chalk were still as beautiful as in summer, but the sadness of a near departure from that familiar district lay heavy onmy mind; and that day proved indeed to be the end of many happy years, for long afterwards, when I returned to those hills, all was changed forme, though Nature was kindly as before. Thus a date, not greatly heeded at the time, may be found to have marked one of life's turning-points, and the flowers connected with it may hold a peculiar significance in memory.
It is a sad moment for a flower-lover when he sees before him "the last rose of summer" ("rose" is a term which may here be used in a general sense for any sweet and pleasing flower), and realizes that he is now face to face with the season's euthanasia, "that last brief resurrection of summer in its most brilliant memorials, a resurrection that has no root in the past, nor steady hold upon the future, like the lambent and fitful gleams from an expiring lamp." Yet so gradual is this change, and the resurrection of which De Quincey speaks so entrancing, that one is comforted even while he grieves.
For example, there are few sights more cheering on a late September day than to find by some bare tidal river a colony of the marsh-mallow. The most admired member of the family is usually the muskmallow; and certainly it is a very pretty flower, with its bright foliage and the pink satiny sheen of its corolla; but far more charming, though less showy in appearance, is its modest sister of the salt marshes, whose leaves, overspread with hoary down, are soft as softest velvet, and her petalssteeped in as tender and delicate a tint of palest rose-colour as could be imagined in dreams. There is something especially gracious about thisalthæa, or "healer"; and her virtues are not more soothing to body than to mind.
It was from the Sussex shingles that I started, and from the same shore my concluding picture shall be drawn—a quaint sea-posy that I picked there on an October afternoon, not so romantic, certainly, as one of violets or forget-me-nots, but in that sere season not less heartening than any nosegay of the spring. It held but three flowers, samphire, sea-rocket, and sea-heath. The samphire, at all times a singular and attractive herb, was now in fruit, and had faded to a wan yellow; the rocket was still in flower, its lilac blossoms crowning the solid glaucous stalk, and its thick fleshy leaves rivalling the texture of seaweed; the small sea-heath, with wiry reddish stems and dark-green foliage, lent itself by a natural contrast for twining around its bulkier companions. Thus grouped they stood for weeks in a vase on my mantel, until the time for wildflowers was overpast, and the "black and tan" days of winter were already let loose on the earth. And even when the year is actually at its lowest, the sunnier times can be revived and re-enacted in thought; for memory is potent as that wizard in Morris's poem, who in the depth of a northern Christmastide could so wondrously transform the season,
That through one window men beheld the spring,And through another saw the summer glow,And through a third the fruited vines a-row;While still unheard, but in its wonted way,Piped the drear wind of that December day.
Such flowery scenes has the writing of this little book brought back to me, and has robbed at least one winter of many cheerless hours.