1C2 WILD FLOWERS OF 



Gloucestershire, with a conjoined triple bole, all rnoss 

 and lichen-covered, and probably more than four 

 centuries old. I also remember several very fine ones, 

 ivy-cinctured, and with innumerable tortuous arms, 

 on the feathery summit of the Little Skirid, near 

 Abergavenny, Monmouthshire ; but never have I 

 seen this reverend tree's grey locks more beautiful 

 than amid the southern trenches of the camp on the 

 summit of the Salopian Wrekin, where numerous old 

 trees lie scattered, of the slow growth of centuries. 

 My memory doats upon a blissful afternoon I once 

 spent there, dozing on the sunny bank, and ever and 

 anon looking upon the " siller gray" thorns, the tre- 

 mendously rugged glacis of the hill fortress, and below 

 upon the glorious vale, serpentized by the sparkling- 

 Severn, and bounded beyond by the rich groves of 

 Buildwas, and the indented waving ridge of wind- 

 blown Wenlock. Those were young days of toil, 

 sorrow, and depression, when poetry burnt me up, 

 but enthusiasm summoned me to many a wild em- 

 bowered scene, and offered consolations amidst 

 Nature's beauties that cheered me then, and have 

 scarcely lost their inspiring influence now. In parks 

 hawthorns often appear as if in clumps, their boles 

 divided and multiplied, which is a sign of extreme old 

 age. In the "bottoms" of the Cotteswolds, as they 

 are termed, numerous many-boled hawthorns may yet 

 be seen, some of them singularly overgrown with ivy, 

 twisted, and remarkably tortuous. A curious one of 

 this kind, in the park at Enville, near Stourbridge, has 

 twelve boles spreading out from the base. There are 

 many species of Hawthorn (Cratagus), and numerous 

 countries have a peculiar one allotted to each, but 



