186 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



is no margin of partial disturbance repose begins at 

 the edge. Perhaps it is best to be at once content, 

 and to move no further ; to remain, like the lime tree, 

 in one spot, with the sunshine and the sky, to close 

 the eyes and listen to the thrush. Something, how- 

 ever, urges exploration. 



The majority of visitors naturally follow the path, 

 and go round into the general expanse; but I will 

 turn from here sharply to the right, and crossing th& 

 sward there is, after a few steps only, another enclosing 

 wall. Within this enclosure, called the Herbaceous 

 Ground, heedlessly passed and perhaps never heard 

 of by the thousands who go to see the Palm Houses, 

 lies to me the real and truest interest of Kew. For 

 here is a living dictionary of English wild flowers. 



The meadow and the cornfield, the river, the moun- 

 tain and the woodland, the seashore, the very waste 

 place by the roadside, each has sent its peculiar 

 representatives, and glancing for the moment, at 

 large, over the beds, noting their number and extent, 

 remembering that the specimens are not in the mass 

 but individual, the first conclusion is that our own 

 country is the true Flowery Land. 



But the immediate value of this wonderful garden is 

 in the clue it gives to the most ignorant, enabling any 

 one, no matter how unlearned, to identify the flower 

 that delighted him or her, it may be, years ago, in 

 far-away field or copse. Walking up and down the 

 green paths between the beds, you are sure to come 

 upon it presently, with its scientific name duly 

 attached and its natural order labelled at the end of 

 the patch. 



