234 SUMMER 



June wind fanning from the trees; but the exceptional 

 drought of the wall keeps them sparer of foliage than when 

 they shoot on a cliff, which has generally some percolation 

 of moisture from the earth above or behind. They thus 

 conform to the dwarf habit of the wall-garden, and are true 

 to the scale of the spot, although within miniature surround- 

 ings ; and with their dense stringy growth they have the 



WALL-FLOWERS 



stature of a flowering shrub rather than their herbaceous 

 growth in the setting of a garden-bed. Snapdragons make 

 mouths upon the wall, thriving like the wall-flower on stony 

 perches ; and here and there on old walls the spurred 

 valerian flowers in bushy masses at midsummer, and draws 

 the whirring hawk moths. Ivy-leaved toad-flax has a flower 

 mouthed like the snapdragon, but is as delicate in all its 

 parts as the snapdragon is lusty. This toad-flax is almost 

 more the child of the wall than the wall-flower ; clambering 

 from crevice to crevice among the mortar it keeps a perfect 



