Wild Flowers 



identification was right. I was too desirous to be 

 correct, too conscientious, and thus a summer went 

 by with little progress. If you really wish to identify 

 with certainty, and have no botanist friend and no 

 magnum opus of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult 

 indeed to be quite sure. There was no Sowerby, no 

 Bentham, no botanist friend no one even to give the 

 common country names ; for it is a curious fact that 

 the country people of the time rarely know the names 

 put down as the vernacular for flowers in the books. 



No one there could tell me the name of the marsh- 

 marigold which grew thickly in the water-meadows 

 " A sort of big buttercup," that was all they knew. 

 Commonest of common plants is the " sauce alone " 

 in every hedge, on every bank, the whitish-green leaf 

 is found yet I could not make certain of it. If some 

 one tells you a plant, you know it at once and never 

 forget it, but to learn it from a book is another 

 matter; it does not at once take root in the mind, it 

 has to be seen several times before you are satisfied 

 you waver in your convictions. The leaves were 

 described as large and heart-shaped, and to remain 

 green (at the ground) through the winter; but the 

 colour of the flower was omitted, though it was stated 

 that the petals of the hedge-mustard were yellow. 

 The plant that seemed to me to be probably " sauce 

 alone " had leaves somewhat heart-shaped, but so 

 confusing is partial description that I began to think 

 I had hit on " ramsons " instead of " sauce alone/' 

 especially as ramsons was said to be a very common 

 plant. So it is in some counties, but, as I afterwards 

 found, there was not a plant of ramsons, or garlic, 

 throughout the whole of that district. When, some 

 years afterwards, I saw a white-flowered plant with 

 leaves like the lily of the valley, smelling of garlic, in 



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