204 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



old walls even to well-tilled ground near them. I 

 never saw the beautiful small white periwinkle (an 

 uncommon plant anywhere, and even doubtfully native) 

 so luxuriant as I once saw it on the walls of Tintern 

 Abbey. As it grew there I could easily fancy that it 

 was an escape from, and perhaps the last remnant of, 

 the old Abbey garden, and for the first time I realised 

 how well adapted the plant was to form the ' garlands 

 of Pervenke set on his heaed ' that Chaucer and other 

 old writers sing of ; but the plant is no longer there, 

 having been destroyed by a succession of admiring and 

 greedy visitors. And many of us recollect with plea- 

 sure the South European Senecio squalidus at Oxford. 

 It probably escaped from the botanic garden, and now 

 clothes, not only the grand old coped wall of the 

 gardens (a wall that is almost unequalled as a garden 

 wall), but also the walls of the park of Magdalen, and 

 even grows freely on the stringcourses of Magdalen 

 tower. 



Any one who possesses an old wall will find plenty 

 of plants that Avill grow there as well, and in many 

 cases even better, than on the borders ; and it seems 

 to make little difference of what material the wall 

 is made. I have seen granite walls almost as well 

 covered as those made of a softer stone, and slate walls 

 soon get covered ; but the best walls for the growth of 



