206 A BOTANICAL TOUR THROUGH SOUTH WALES, &c. 



the event of slipping down in search of a few of its tantalizing plants." The 

 eastern end of the morass appears to have been partially drained since Donovan's 

 time, but the great mass of It still precisely answers to his account. It must be 

 confessed, however, that at this time partial openings in the sedgy forest, and 

 several spreads of water within the dank and lurid herbage, presented- scenes of 

 transcendent beauty, from the profusion of white Nymphules (Nymphcea alba J 

 that, in full flower filling the air with fragrance, almost hid the water from view, 

 with their snowy multitude of flowers. One circular pond in particular had a 

 fairy-like aspect, hemmed round in solitary loveliness — to be visited only by the 

 Gallinule or Wild Duck, or perhaps rippled by the young of the Grebe — 



""Where in the midst upon her throne of green, 

 Sits the large Lily as the water's queen." — Crabbe. 



The splendid Ranunculus lingua, in almost equal profusion with the Nymphule, 

 fringed the morass with its bright golden flowers ; while, wherever a rising bank 

 diversified the monotony of the morassy waste, a dense squadron of Eriophori 

 waved their ermine tassels in the vagrant breeze. Most botanists, perhaps, have 

 their favourite flower rendered dearer in their estimation from the charm of 

 association. — Linnaeus hung with rapture over the European Winter-green (Tri- 

 entalis Europcea), while Sir J. E. Smith, in English Botany, fixes upon the 

 Water Avens (Geum rivale), gracefully drooping its crimson petals, as having 

 a peculiar charm for him ; but surely he that has once seen the white water-lily 

 (Nymphule) in its native haunts, assuming the appearance of a silver chalice 

 floating on the water, and resting on its broad emerald leaves, that occasionally 

 rise up fluttering in the gale, can never again recur to the indelible image they 

 have left upon his mind without renewed delight. It must be admitted, even in 

 these unpoetical utilitarian days, that the flowers memory has entwined 

 around our early recollections are among the few unalloyed objects that, with 

 talismanic power, are yet enabled to touch and pierce, if but for a moment, the 

 iron panoply with which care and contention have invested the human breast . 

 And here I shall hardly be out of place (or forgiven, if I am) in alluding to 

 that beautiful passage in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets, where he thus 

 mentions the " vernal posy" his mother had placed at his breast, on his first going 

 to be catechised with his young compeers before their rural pastor. — 



. " How flutter'd then thy anxious heart for me, 

 Beloved Mother ! Thou whose happy hand 

 Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie : 

 Sweet flowers ! at whose inaudible command 

 Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear : 

 O lost too early for the frequent tear, 

 And ill requited by this heart-felt sigh." 



