ON THE CHALK DOWNS 115 



further. White bryony, with its delicate ivy-shaped leaves 

 and greenish white blossoms, is specially fond of the chalk ; 

 and black bryony, which will grow in most soils, finds the 

 light porous rock as nutritive as the Midland clays. Both 

 white and black bryony die down to the ground every 

 autumn, but, unlike the henbane and deadly nightshade, 

 spring from a stout perennial stock in the soil. They are 

 thus less dependent on the moods of the season, though their 

 ' gadding vines ' climb furthest and form the most matted 

 screens of verdure in hot, moist years. Wild clematis, which 



WOODY NIGHTSHADE 



is traveller's joy all through the summer and old-man's-beard 

 in autumn, is one of the favourite plants of chalk and other 

 calcareous soils. Though the lesser twigs die and turn 

 brittle in autumn, the stouter bines are perennial, and cling 

 inextricably among the layers of the thicket. 



Mulleins light their fiery torches on English hillsides 

 about midsummer, like the great yellow gentians that tower 

 on the Swiss slopes in June. The line of fire creeps up 

 the torch as the days go on, much as the redder stain mounts 

 to the top of a stem of foxglove in the copse. These 

 upstretched flowers are nature's summer gnomons, and seem 



