BY BANK: AND COPSE. 23 



characteristic of almost all the borage family, to which 

 these plants belong. 



A patch of waste land or common here separates us from 

 yonder wood. A hobbled donkey is searching vainly for 

 young shoots round a close-grazed furze-bush, and a few 

 geese are paddling round the sides of a small and dirty 

 pond. The soil hereabouts is stiff. An old and straggling 

 bush of "the never bloomless furze," tangled with a 

 hawthorn above the reach of the donkey, bears a few of its 

 golden blossoms. Norse folk-lore is credited with terming 

 March " the lengthening month that wakes the adder and 

 blooms the whin " ; and, though we might in the South 

 find a few flowers on the furze in February, in the North, 

 where more particularly it is called whin, the saying is 

 undoubtedly true. On an exceptionally warm day we may 

 perhaps find an adder sunning himself on some such spot 

 as this ; but he is likely to be still but half emerged from 

 his winter torpor. This large-growing furze, and the dwarf 

 allied forms between them, keep up that constant succession 

 of blossom that leads to the adage that " kissing is out of 

 season when the furze is out of blossom " ; but the dwarf 

 species are more common on sand, while this larger one 

 loves the clay. We cannot resist, in this season when floral 

 perfumes are still scarce, gathering a few of the bright 

 blossoms with their soft, woolly, two-lipped coats, to rub 

 them in our hands, and sniff their rich apricot-like 

 fragrance. As we step aside to do so we light upon a 

 whole assemblage of weedy plants that have evidently been 

 some time in bloom. Here the deep pink gaping flowers 

 of the red dead-nettle peep out between its crowded red- 

 tinged leaves : the despised groundsel, a degraded Cineraria 

 without the bright ray-florets of its relatives, is growing side 



