1 66 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



Is there any difference in the taste of London honey 

 and in that of the country ? From the immense quantity 

 of garden flowers about the metropolis it would seem 

 possible for a distinct flavour, not perhaps preferable, 

 to be imparted. Lavender, of which old housewives 

 were so fond, and which is still the best of preservatives, 

 comes next, and self-heal is just coming out in flower ; 

 the reapers have, I believe, forgotten its former use in 

 curing the gashes sometimes inflicted by the reap-hook. 

 The reaping-machine has banished such memories 

 from the stubble. Nightshades border on the potato, 

 the flowers of both almost exactly alike; poison and 

 food growing side by side and of the same species. 



There are tales still told in the villages of this deadly 

 and enchanted mandragora ; the lads sometimes go to 

 the churchyards to search for it. Plantains and docks, 

 wild spurge, hops climbing up a dead fir tree, a well- 

 chosen pole for them nothing is omitted. Even the 

 silver weed, the dusty-looking foliage which is thrust aside 

 as you walk on the footpath by the road, is here labelled 

 with truth as " cosmopolitan " of habit. 



Bird's-foot lotus, another Downside plant, lights up 

 the stones put to represent rockwork with its yellow. 

 Saxifrage, and stone-crop and house-leek are here in 

 variety. Buttercups occupy a whole patch a little 

 garden to themselves. What would the haymakers say 

 to such a sight ? Little, too, does the mower reck of the 

 number, variety, and beauty of the grasses in a single 

 armful of swathe, such as he gathers up to cover his jar 

 of ale with and keep it cool by the hedge. The bennets, 

 the flower of the grass, on their tall stalks, go down in 

 numbers as countless as the sand of the seashore before 

 his scythe. 



But here the bennets are watched and tended, the 



