328 EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. [Novembei', 



autumnal dress. At Henley, Oxon, (which Camden calls the 

 oldest town in the county,) we lost the motion of the railway and 

 the noise of steam, and proceeded on our journey to the north- 

 west, a distance of seven miles. The road through this district, 

 from the valley of the Thames, is on the ascent until you reach 

 an extensive heath, with gravel containing angular flints, over- 

 lying the chalk, being part of the range of the Chiltern Hills. 

 You know that this part of the country near Turville, Ibstone, 

 and S token Church is full of elevations, covered mostly with 

 woods of beech-trees, and some of the broad valleys are very 

 deep and cultivated as corn-fields. The roads, or more properly 

 lanes, are very picturesque and delightful to the eye of the 

 botanist, for he finds many of his old friends stretching their 

 arms from the hedges on both sides to meet him. The fore- 

 most is the Clematis Vitalba (called here Honesty), in many 

 places Traveller's Joy, Virgin's Bower, and other names : all, I 

 doubt not, indicating some peculiar habit or property of the 

 plant. It certainly adorns the hedgerows in a profuse manner. 

 There is also the White Bryony, which is equally luxuriant in its 

 growth, and at this season of the year enlivens the hedges with 

 its graceful branches, covered with berries of a coral-red hue. 

 The leaves of this plant are very rough, in shape like a vine-leaf: 

 in the woods we find the Black Bryony. The leaves of this hand- 

 some climber are smooth, heart-shaped ; and the clustered berries 

 of a cornelian-red hue. 



The Bitter-sweet [Solanum Dulcamara) also shows its love of 

 liberty by ascending to the top of the hedge, and adds its red 

 berries to the garland of nature. 



The usurping Bramble is also here, and is now in full fruit, 

 reminding us of days when we went blackberrying, and in truth 

 I do not even now refuse to partake of this fruit, as it is whole- 

 some and palatable. Of the same climbing nature of growth 

 appears the common Hop, Humulus Lupulus ; and what plant, 

 may I ask, in our hedges is more graceful than this ? There is 

 an elegance in the arrangement of its flowers which I am not 

 able to describe. There is also the Dog-rose, with its fruit 

 called heps, and the Honeysuckle still bearing its fragrant blos- 

 soms. Add to these the prickly Holly, which Southey has poetized 

 as an evidence of the wisdom of God. The beautiful Viburnum 

 Opulus is in full fruit. The Maple, the Hazel, the Hawthorn, the 



