OCTOBER. 467 



berries, the wild Bryony (Tamus communis), shows 

 its crowded wax-like fruit twining among shrubs high 

 in air, and the clustered sloes or slons contrast their 

 blue mealiness with the deep sable of the blackberries 

 bending down oppressed with their ripened weight. 

 The reeking turf is brightened with the purple and 

 yellow blossoms of a whole army of little Eyebrights 

 (EupTirasia officinalis), that in such an airy situation 

 might well be imagined to sharpen the eyesight, or at 

 least to open the mental vision to contemplative 

 delight. A few bell-flowers, gems of ethereal blue, 

 yet cling to the scene like reflections of past delights 

 but the ling brown and faded, stretches far and 

 wide in sulky continuity yet even that is burnished 

 here and there with the sparkling beaded beauty- 

 giving vapour, bright as virtue in the humblest garb. 

 The lesser gorse is yet gorgeous in gold, contrasting 

 with the brown faded or auburn fading brake, gradu- 

 ally bending its broad fronds to the ground, while 

 tufts of the grayish-green Juniper rise at intervals, 

 like hermits in hoary gowns, and give almost a sacred 

 character to the scene, especially where a cloistered 

 wood extends its brown umbrage on the margin of 

 the heath, with scattered broken mouldy pales upon 

 its bounds covered with aged silver lichens and green 

 leprarice, the collected fur of time and rot. The 

 Mountain Groundsel (Senecio sylvaticus) strews the 

 ground abundantly here, its numerous flowers with 

 their inconspicuous revolute rays making up for their 

 minuteness in giving a feature to the bank ; and rising 

 about almost every old stump on the edge of the wood, 

 the purple flowered Betony (JBetonica officinalis)* an 



* The name Betony is said to be derived from Bentonic, a Celtic word, 



2 H 2 



