IN WOOD AND MEAD 



flowers, and though they turn their faces away from the 

 wind they dance to the slightest breeze. 



WHILE the woods show the faintest signs of burgeoning, 

 new greenery spreads daily over the stone 

 Mother -of- hedges of the west country, where the 

 Thousands pennywort makes a living cement to every 

 rock. On bridges and grey-walled ruins the 

 dainty little ivy-leafed toadflax is making good head- 

 way, a plant of remarkable sense and sensibility, 

 deservedly called Mother-of -Thousands . The tiny lilac 

 flowers are sun- worshippers, but directly the fruit is 

 formed each flower-stalk turns from the sun to the 

 wall and, bending, deposits the seeds in any cracks 

 discovered. In rustic parlours, this charming wilding 

 is sometimes, grown with its slender branches depending 

 in a flower-pot suspended from a convenient beam an 

 old-fashioned cottage ornament. 



43 



