152 CHAPTER XX. 



under railway bridges, even in the town. The vertical 

 walls of the Vallon Obscur, Nice, are covered with 

 the graceful fronds of the Maiden Hair wherever the 

 public has not been able to reach it and carry it 

 away. 



But Nature's mural decorations are not confined 

 to these. The Red Valerian (Centmnth], the Cam- 

 panula (C. Manrorrhiza), the Antirrhinum (Snap- 

 dragon), and other showy flowers hang out their 

 brilliant tapestry. And many a humble Composite 

 and Crucifer that cannot find a pied a terre below is 

 glad to lodge where lodging may be had, even if it be 

 a long way from the ground. 



Miss Nona Bellairs, in a little book of travels, 

 gives the following delightfully unbotanical story of 

 a wall-frequenting plant which revealed the existence 

 of a ruin. I quote verbatim : " Beyond the Porta 

 Pia, on the Campagna of Rome, a botanist went 

 wandering in search of flowers. After a while he 

 came on one peeping up from the grass that he had 

 never met with before except growing on a wall. 

 Some theory or other was started, so he gathered the 

 flowers and sent them to the Linnean Society. They 

 too were astonished, and sent them back to some 

 of their learned members then in Rome. They went 

 1o the spot, found the flowers, and dug for their 

 roots, when they found traces of an ancient wall. 

 Then archaeology put in a word. It was conjectured 

 that long years ago some great man had been 

 buried in that locality and the precise spot forgotten. 

 The little flower spoke again, and guided by her 

 -voice they dug down and discovered the ancient 

 sarcophagus and the trace of a basilica, the tiny 



