THE GARDEN AND THE WILDS 53 



detect, nor does it occur in the same marked 

 degree. Violets, albeit approaching as closely as 

 primrose and cowslip do, on the common margin 

 of wood and meadow, modestly veil their attach- 

 ment. If oxlips are not more frequently observed 

 in Scotland, it is simply for the lack of cowslips. 



A rarer and more undoubted legacy of these 

 Balmerino monks is " the lily of the valley." 

 Unhappily, it is an example also of the tendency 

 of attractive plants, when they are sweet-scented 

 as well, to disappear behind the garden wall. 

 There is reason to believe that its tenure of Bal- 

 merino is already a thing of the past. The same fate 

 must have attended it elsewhere. Like " none-so- 

 pretty," it remains and thrives when the last stone 

 of the cottage has fallen, and, by the aid of its 

 underground stolons, spreads marvellously amid 

 the rubbish. 



It is so rare in Scotland, that many lovers of 

 wild flowers who have searched the country well- 

 nigh all over, never saw it growing wild. Here 

 its presence suggests the vanished hand. 



Guide-books tell us that, common in England, 

 it thins out toward these boreal regions. As if it 

 were the most natural thing in the world for a 

 wild flower, at once so lovely and shelter-loving, 



