JULY. 275 



the eye of the summer wanderer ; and wherever a tiny 

 rill or grass-grown spring weeps among the meadows, 

 the Queen of the Meads (Spircea ulmaria) lifts up an 

 array of pale sulphur flowers, and fills the air with a 

 cloud of fragrance. 



That pink! ah how lovely! its sight, its scent recalls 

 me to flowers more beautiful, that I had almost for- 

 gotten. It places me at once before that old wall at 

 Llanbedie, in South Wales, where I gathered so many 

 of the wild Pheasant 's-eye Pink (Dianthus pluma- 

 rius*) for my own herbarium and those of others. I 

 was then on my way to Cerrig Cennen Castle ; burn- 

 ing was the day and oppressive in the extreme : I 

 stopped to rest beneath the refreshing shadow of a 

 huge spreading oak ; nor shall I soon forget the re- 

 freshing draught of butter-milk sent to my parched 

 lips by a kind pitying "Welsh-woman. " Pleasure," 

 said a cynic of experience long ago in my hearing, " is 

 the hardest work done!" how often have I found it so; 

 and I found it oil that day when I scaled the heights 

 of Cerrig Cennen to gather its plants, and wound 

 midway beneath its fearful crags, where the stunted 

 yew clasps the crumbling rock, with eagle grasp, as if 

 fearing to fall, and brilliant golden Cisti, or little sun- 

 flowers, bright blue Bell-flowers (Campanula), the 

 Kidney- vetch (Anthyllis miner aria), and various 



* This I have also gathered on the walls of Conway, North Wales. It 

 has been confounded with the Carnation (D. caryophyllus], which grows 

 on the ruined castles of Deal, Sandown, and Rochester, in Kent. The late 

 DAVID CAMERON, of the Birmingham Botanic Garden, who cultivated 

 both plants together, besides the satisfactory specific distinction presented 

 by the different division of the petals and the serratures on the margins of 

 the leaves, remarked that they have a different period of flowering, the 

 flowers of D. plumarius appearing in June, while D. caryophyllu only 

 commences flowering at the latter end of July. 



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