JULY 127 



Night-blowing flowers are mostly pale 

 or white. The nicotiana hanging on its 

 stalk half-dead by day, is radiant as a 

 silver star when night draws on. In the 

 Boccage we have two fine clumps of 

 spiderwort (Tradescantia), a flower I re- 

 member set amongst childhood's wonders, 

 earliest almost of all flowers. Buds mass 

 themselves in clusters all over the plants, 

 and every day on each cluster appears a 

 new three-cornered purple gem. The old 

 fanciful likeness to spiders' legs can be 

 but barely traced in the leaves. There is 

 a sense of mysterious awe, in the way 

 Gerard says the leaves are good ' for the 

 bite of that Great Spider,' without naming 

 the creature more particularly. 



John Tradescant lived once at Dorney 

 Court, not far from here. There is some 

 tradition that there he presented his 

 Pine-apple* to Charles II, and it is 

 not many years since a little wayside 

 public-house near, retained still the sign 



* The first grown in England. At Dorney Court 

 there is an old engraving, which represents Tradescant 

 kneeling before the King in a garden, presenting his 

 pine-apple. 



