94 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



or the broom. It has certainly no representative 

 among Scots alpines, which are the true highlanders 

 among plants. The nearest mountain relations are 

 the blue sow-thistle and the saussurea : neither 

 of which, despite the name of the former, is a 

 thistle. It belongs to the plain, to the water- 

 course, and -be it whispered in the ear to the 

 rubbish heap. Even there it is very much of a 

 weed. 



Moreover, there are many kinds in Scotland, all 

 possible or actual rivals. There is the pale- 

 flowered field thistle, which indicates poor land or 

 bad farming, or both, and usurps the ground rightly 

 belonging to oats. Indeed it impoverishes much 

 more space than it seems to cover, since it creeps 

 in all directions under the ground with those 

 insidious stolons. I always suspect creeping 

 plants. They come from hungry places, and 

 have immense appetites. We shall meet them 

 again, and generally with the same sinister 

 meaning. Some of them have their place in 

 nature, covering places where nothing else 

 would grow, and doing work they alone are 

 fitted for. Least of all countries could Scotland 

 do without them. But this is not one of the 

 useful kind. 



