214 THE WHORTLEBERRY PASTURE. 



lofty protuberances, covered with liverworts and patches 

 of variegated lichens and mosses, and fringed on their 

 edges with diminutive shrubs, form no unimportant part 

 of this peculiar scenery. In every old pasture the dif- 

 ferent kinds of shrubs are more or less distinctly arranged 

 into groups ; some, for example, consisting chiefly of bay- 

 berry, others of roses or perhaps of brambles. But in gen- 

 eral the plats consist of a promiscuous variety of species, 

 in which some one predominates. One of the most com- 

 mon of these social plants is the sweet-fern, universally 

 prized for its fragrance, at the very name of which we are 

 inspired with pleasant recollections of youthful wander- 

 ings. The lambkill is especially prone to form exclusive 

 assemblages, and the most beautiful individuals, when in 

 flower, are generally on the outside of the group. 



But there is no end of the smaller plants that spring 

 up everywhere, some in the open space, others under the 

 protection of a tuft of sedge-grass or a broad-leaved fern. 

 The sweet-scented pyrola is abundant in all shady thick- 

 ets, and the cymbidium and arethusa decorate the low 

 grounds among the nodding panicles of quaking-grass and 

 the spreading flowers of meadow-rue. The loosestrife, 

 with its long pyramidal spikes of yellow flowers, is always 

 conspicuously grouped in the low grounds, side by side with 

 similar plats of low swamp-roses or crimson-spiked wil- 

 low-herb. But the most attractive flower in the whortle- 

 berry pasture is the red summer lily, the cynosure of 

 the happy children who assemble there, the queen of the 

 meadow, and the delight of every rambler in the coppice. 



The man who thinks of nature only as a field for the 

 display of magnificent art may sneer at these rustic scenes 

 and their native ornaments. But pride cannot make un- 

 adorned nature contemptible, nor can the grandeur of a 

 princely estate deprive its occupants, if their culture 

 equals their wealth, of the interest with which they be- 



