BY BANK AND COPSE. 29 



the stalk ; but in the bunch their perfume is as delicate as 

 it will ever be, and dotted about here and there in the 

 open coppice they are perhaps more picturesque than when 

 carpeting an entire bank. Only perhaps in inner recesses 

 of the wood shall we find the drawn-up specimens with 

 several flowers borne aloft on a single stalk, which most 

 country folk erroneously know as "oxlips," and which serve 

 to explain the apparent difference in the arrangement of the 

 flowers in primrose and in cowslip. Each primrose flower 

 has, it is true, a long and slender stalk, far longer than is 

 the case in the cowslip, and these stalks rise deep down 

 among the bases of the leaves; but there we shall find 

 them united on a common stalk, as are those of the 

 cowslip, only that here the conditions are reversed, and 

 this "peduncle," or footstalk, as it is termed, is long 

 in the cowslip, and, as a rule, extremely short in the 

 primrose. 



We have gathered a large bunch, picking at the same 

 time a few of the delicate drooping wood-anemones, 

 blushing pink over the contrasting dark green of the three 

 cut leaves that spring from the middle of their flower- 

 stalks. As we have been so engaged we have seen that 

 the dog's-mercury is in flower ; that there is many a patch 

 of lesser celandine, and perhaps the little verdigris oil- 

 beetle feeding on its leaves ; that the firm and polished 

 green spears of the wild hyacinths are piercing their way 

 up through the dead leaves, often carrying aloft in triumph 

 a withered transfixed victim; but that they have not yet 

 reached the flowering stage. Several other plants also we 

 may have noticed. The stout crimson stalks and blue- 

 green leaves of the wood-spurge, now hanging drooping 

 heads, are conspicuous, though less so perhaps than they 



