110 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



bourhood, we frequently find hybrid forms partaking of the 

 characters of both, and inclining sometimes towards one and 

 sometimes towards the other. What may be called the 

 typical intermediate form was at one time raised to the 

 dignity of an independent species, under the title of Genm 

 intermedium, a name that sufficiently explains itself; but as 

 every degree of hybridism and transition from the two ex- 

 tremes may be met with, there is evidently no justification in 

 admitting the claim of any particular degree of change to an 

 independent existence. We have ourselves met with every 

 stage of gradation between the two extreme types. 



The water avens, as its name implies sufficiently clearly, 

 is a lover of moist situations, so that we find it ordinarily 

 by the banks of rivers and canals in the coarse herbage that 

 fringes their margins, or in ditches. It is not, however, so 

 exclusively a plant of the low-lying valleys as its name would 

 perhaps, lead us to suppose ; the specimen, for example, from 

 which our illustration was taken was growing in a wood 

 on the summit of a considerable eminence, but we need 

 scarcely remind any one who has had any experience of moun- 

 tains, whether in Cumberland, Wales, or Switzerland, that 

 marshy and swampy ground is by no means uncommon on 

 them, and it is in such situations that we find the water avens. 

 It is altogether a northern plant, flourishing most freely in 

 the northern parts of Europe, in Canada, and Siberia, and 

 though occasionally found in southern England, it is very 

 much more common in the northern counties and in 

 Scotland. 



The generic name geum is derived from the Greek, 

 and signifies yielding an agreeable flavour : this refers, 

 however, to the root of the other species in the genus, 

 the G. nrbannm ; while the specific name is based on 



