80 WILD FLOWERS. 



" The Traveller's Joy, 

 Most beauteous when its flowers assume 

 Their autumn form of feather)' plume : 

 The Traveller's Joy ! name well bestow'd 

 On that wild plant, which by the road 

 Of Southern England, to adorn 

 Faiis not the hedge of prickly thorn, 

 On wilding rose-bush, apt to creep 

 O'er the dry limestone's craggy steep, 

 There still a gay companion near 

 To the way-faring traveller." 



The old herbalist, Gerarde, gave the flower 

 this name. He says, " This is commonly 

 cafled, Fiorna quasi via ornana, of decking and 

 adorning waies and hedges where people travel, 

 and therefore I have named it the Traveller's 

 Joy." 



Growing in small groups, on hedgebanks, or 

 on heaths or woods, the whortleberry hush is 

 now coming into blossom. There are four wild 

 species of this plant, but the most common is 

 that called the bilberry {Vacciniutn myrtiUus.) 

 This shrub is lovv^ and straggling, seldom found 

 alone, but generally clustering on diiferent spots 

 of the land on which it appears. Indeed, this 

 tribe of plants is never found growing singly. 

 We do not meet with an individual plant, but it 

 always grows in numbers, and generally abounds 

 in the neighbourhood for some miles. This 

 species is an elegant little plant, its leaves are 

 of a beautiful green, and its small red flowers 

 hang among them like so many waxen cups. 

 Children are fond of the bilberry, or hurtlebcrry, 

 as it is often called ; and, in some of the northern 

 counties, this fruit is sold in the markets for 

 tarts. The people of Devonshire eat the ber- 



