88 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS 



natural botanical mode of mapping the district, combined with the 

 readiest mode of surveying it from a practical point of view. 



Moreover, associated with the striking alien plants that come up 

 with cereal and root crops are a good sprinkling of the pasture 

 grasses, &c., which persist in spite of cultivation, especially on the 

 borders of cornfields where the plough does not disturb the turf. Of 

 these other plants, we have included here three at least, the prickly 

 multi-coloured Hemp-nettle, which lurks in the hedge, White Campion, 

 which grows frequently elsewhere, and several Fescue grasses, which 

 are found also at higher levels on dry hills and the sides of walls, such 

 as Sheep's Fescue. 



Here between the blades of wheat we expect to find the Mouse-tail. 

 Abundant and pernicious in the farmer's opinion, the neat Corn 

 Buttercup fills many a wide interspace left where the grain has not 

 matured. Towering halfway as high as the cornstalks in the East 

 counties, Larkspur here and there is frequent, with its delicate blue 

 blooms. 



Poppies spread a blood-red mantle over the golden grain in almost 

 every field of corn, and lurking low down cowers the foetid Earthsmoke 

 with foliage like maidenhair. Everywhere the young blades of corn 

 are outdone in the massing of colour by the Yellow Charlock, which, to 

 the farmer's chagrin, studs the fields so plentifully in early spring. 

 Sparingly the graceful woad-like Gold of Pleasure struggles upward, 

 too, amid the ripening corn. 



Purple and white, the lowly but pretty Candytuft in East Anglian 

 cornfields brings a touch of the garden to the field. So too the little 

 Heartsease, with its diminutive heads like dwarf pansies, recalls the 

 rows of V. tricolor in the garden. The tall graceful White Campion 

 opening to the honey-seeking insects at night is common here. Then 

 no cornfield is complete without its Corn Cockles in the popular mind, 

 but they are really more local than is usually supposed. The useful 

 Spurrey spreads over the bare soil, affording fodder for cattle, but is 

 little used in England. Common Flax reminds us of one of the 

 sources of her greatness to-day, and once many a flax field could be 

 seen in several districts, while now, as a rule, flax is imported. 



On the stubble after the corn is cut, or amongst clover, Alsike 

 Clover with its cream-and-pink orbs rises above the sandy soil laid 

 bare at intervals. Shepherd's Needle with its comb-like seedcases, 

 and its delicate little flowers and fine-cut foliage, is to be seen in most 

 cornfields; and the foul and poisonous Fool's Parsley covers all the 

 underglade with dark-green foliage; Field Madder and Lamb's Lettuce 



