44 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



searched from end to end, I had been over most 

 of it, would have yielded such another clump. 

 In some strange way, the flower had got there. 

 The scene suggested an aesthetic origin. 



Only yesterday I plucked a crimson sprig from 

 a wild American currant, to lighten up a little 

 natural bouquet of brown wood moss and green 

 hawthorn leaf. The bush was growing vigorously 

 and flowering freely in the middle of a wood, a 

 mile and a half from any town. 



How far this element goes to swell the sum of 

 our wild flowers it were extremely difficult to say. 

 But it seems fairly certain that, were all the 

 escapes from gardens deducted, a less bulky 

 volume would contain the natives. 



To those who have watched the process who 

 have all but seen the flight of the seeds over the 

 garden wall ; who have certainly been at the birth 

 of the strange seedlings, under the shadow of the 

 wood, or on the moist stream-side bank ; who have 

 traced, season by season, the creeping of the 

 garden parings away from the wall the possible 

 additions from this source will seem scarcely 

 capable of exaggeration. And, on each discovery, 

 they will turn over the pages of their handbook 

 with fresh interest and curiosity. 



