FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



In making any botanical survey of a country or district one has to 

 consider that certain associations are natural, while others are artificial. 

 If it were possible altogether to say how much of a given region were 

 really aboriginal, probably that portion would require to be put down 

 as an infinitesimal fragment. It is, moreover, clear that the artificial 

 influence of man is an overlapping or obscuring mantle whose ample 

 folds disguise all the small corners despised by man, from position or 

 barrenness (from his point of view), or because they have been retained 

 under the same conditions from time immemorial, where the last resort 

 of truly native plants can still be seen. 



These islets in a sea of otherwise purely artificial fields, meadows, 

 woodlands, &c. (and we must chiefly exclude water from the artificial 

 tracts), are really to the far-seeing botanist the most interesting part of 

 his quest or study. For he knows quite well that the enclosed fields, 

 with their modern ditches, hedges, trees, and turf, are no more natural 

 than the hovels provided in the fields for the shelter of cattle, that 

 so largely cause this alteration of the land surface. 



None the less, since the entire crust has repeatedly undergone 

 radical changes in surface vegetation, configuration, and so forth, it is 

 necessary also to consider the composition of the essentially artificial 

 tracts. 



The artificial meadow and cornfields and bushlands have been 

 already considered, and since roads and hedges are an important part 

 of all regions and are best studied in a linear fashion, wherever they 

 enclose or intersect the equally artificial fields or districts, we need 

 make no apology here for making a special section devoted to the 

 flowers of the roadsides and hedges which belong as an appendix we 

 may perhaps best consider them to the previous section or meso- 

 phytes. 



We have in the roads first the macadam, with a gritty border, 

 fringed by Silverweed, a zone of grass of varying width which varies 

 with the geological formation, where grasses, sedges, rushes, and 



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