54 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



plants it, it fills a right place. Daisies are not perhaps 

 in their right place in lawns, but I should be sorry to 

 see my laAvn quite free from them, and so I am sure 

 would the children. Buttercups have a shining beauty 

 of petal that is not surpassed by any floAver, and I do 

 not think that Jean Ingelow's comparison of a field of 

 buttercups to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, to the 

 great advantage of the buttercups, is much exaggerated ; 

 but they must be kept out of the garden. The weeds 

 that chiefly trouble me in April are the two veronicas, 

 V. agrestis and V. Buxbaumi ; either of them might lay 

 claim to the title of * the little speedwell's darling blue,' 

 and they are so short-lived that they do little real harm; 

 still, they give a good deal of trouble. But some weeds 

 are so beautiful that I should certainly grow them in 

 the garden, if only they could be kept in place, and if 

 they were not already too abundant. I should be 

 sorry to banish from my walls the creeping toad-flax 

 and the yellow fumitory, and as long as they keep to 

 the walls they do no harm. But there are two plants 

 that are sad weeds, but which, if lost, would be sorely 

 missed. The dandelion is one — 



' The flower 

 That blows a globe of after arrowlets. ' 



Surely no other flower can surpass it for beauty of 

 foliage, beauty of shape, and rich beauty of colouring. 



