70 WILD FLOWEBS. 



lustre. But the saintfoin, though cultivated in 

 fields, is an English wild flower ; it is not, how- 

 ever, common in Scotland. It springs up natu- 

 rally, on dry and chalky soils only, its long 

 roots penetrating between the crevices in the 

 rock, or chalky cliff ; and it is upon this kind of 

 soil that it can be cultivated to most perfection. 

 On several of our moors, as Royston Heath and 

 Salisbury Plain, it is plentiful. It is not till the 

 latter end of ISIay that the saintfoin is in full 

 flower on the field, and it then contrasts beau- 

 tifully with the light green of the corn-field, 

 and the deeper tint of the meadow. It was 

 formerly called cock's head grass, and French 

 grass. Fuller, commenting on the vegetable 

 productions of the different counties of England, 

 says of it, " It is called saintfoin, or holy hay. 

 Superstition may seem in the name, but there 

 is nothing but good husbandry in the sowing 

 thereof. It was first fetched out of France from 

 about Paris, and since is sown in divers places 

 in England, especially at Cobhani-park, in Kent, 

 where it thriveth extraordinary well on dry, 

 chalky banks, where nothing else will grow." 

 The plant is, in the present day, very plentiful 

 as a wild flower, and decks the hedge-banks of 

 some of the lovely green lanes which lie around 

 the ancient hall of Cobham. 



A most singular instance of spontaneous mo- 

 tion is exhibited by a species of saintfoin called 

 the moving plant, {Hedysarum gyrans.) This is 

 a handsome flower of a purplish pink colour. 

 It grows on the banks of the Gauges, and is 



