164 FRESH FIELDS 



neither winter nor summer, as it is here, and the 

 supply of moisture is more uniform and abundant. 

 In dampness, coolness, and shadiness, the whole 

 climate is woodsy, while the atmosphere of the 

 woods themselves is almost subterranean in its dank- 

 ness and chilliness. The plants come out for sun 

 and warmth, and every seed they scatter in this 

 moist and fruitful soil takes. 



How many exclusive wood flowers we have, most 

 of our choicest kinds being of sylvan birth, flowers 

 that seem to vanish before the mere breath of culti- 

 vated fields, as wild as the partridge and the beaver, 

 like the yellow violet, the arbutus, the medeola, 

 Ihe dicentra, the claytonia, the trilliums, many of 

 the orchids, uvularia, dalibarda, and others. In 

 England, probably, all these plants, if they grew 

 there, would come out into the fields and opens. 

 The wild strawberry, however, reverses this rule; 

 it is more a wood plant in England than with us. 

 Excepting the rarer variety (Fragaria vesca), our 

 strawberry thrives best in cultivated fields, .and 

 Shakespeare's reference to this fruit would not be 

 apt,- 



" The strawberry grows underneath the nettle ; 

 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, 

 Neighbor'd by fruit of baser quality." 



The British strawberry is found exclusively, I be- 

 lieve, in woods and copses, and the ripened fruit is 

 smaller or lighter colored than our own. 



Nature in this island is less versatile than with 

 us, but more constant and uniform, less variety and 



