In My Vicarage Garden 



hedge rows of Kent " (Gerard). Yet it is more 

 generally applied to the garden Canterbury Bells, 

 C. Medium, and this is the plant which is so 

 abundant in the Sole Street cutting. It is not 

 a British plant, but is found chiefly in the south 

 of France, and is also found in Italy and in 

 Turkey. There seems no reason why it should 

 not become perfectly naturalised in its new rail- 

 road home, though it may be a great puzzle why 

 it has not found a congenial home long before 

 this, for it has been a favourite in English gardens 

 for three hundred years, having been grown both 

 by Gerard and Parkinson. I do not know the 

 reason for the name given to the plant by 

 Linnaeus, C. Medium^ but the name of one fine 

 British bell flower, C. trachelium, is directly from 

 the Greek rpa^Xog, a throat, and was probably 

 adopted from its older English name, throatwort, 

 " because they are excellent good against the 

 inflammation of the throate and uvula " (Gerard). 

 Another foreigner has completely established 

 itself on an embankment of the Great Western, 

 near Bath. This is the giant parsnip (heracleum 

 villosum\ a native of the Caucasus, and in this 

 case it is known to have been an escape from the 

 garden of the engineer who made that part of the 

 line. It is a grand plant, and seeds very freely 

 and is a troublesome weed in gardens, but on the 

 railway embankment it is a great ornament. 



On a rough barren piece of ground near one 

 of the stations of the Midland Railway, between 



138 



