130 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



called, Old Man's Beard, is a familiar plant to me when at its 

 flowering height. The yellowish blossoms have a quiet, refined 

 beauty all their own, and the way in which the plant masses 

 itself over and along a hedgerow, is not the least interesting 

 feature concerning it. 



It appears to thrive wonderfully well on chalky soil. Later 

 in the year, the feathery awns make their appearance, silky in 

 texture, and of delicate workmanship. Then it is that Old Man's 

 Beard deserves its popular and old-fashioned name, and at 

 Christmas time it is in great demand for the decoration of churches 

 and other places. 



Attached to each feathery awn there is a small egg-shaped 

 seed, and it is obvious that this plant largely depends upon wind 

 to distribute its fruit. The seed has a distinct peppery taste, 

 but whether, in spite of this, it is partaken of by birds, I have 

 not yet been able to discover. 



It will probably cause some amount of surprise to the casual 

 observer when it is stated that Traveller's Joy belongs to the 

 same order of flowering plants as the Common Crowfoot, or 

 Buttercup, indeed, in the classification of British flowering 

 plants having two seed leaves (called dicotyledons), the plant- 

 under notice holds the lowest place. Our British floras invari- 

 ably begin with Clematis vitalba, as Traveller's Joy is known 

 to the botanist, and hence there is more than one reason why 

 it is entitled to notice here. 



A favourite chalk dell, to which I am in the habit of repairing 

 when in search of specimens for use in Nature Study classes, 

 was recently a veritable picture of wild flowers. For the most 

 part, the plants consisted of remarkably large clusters of Bitter 

 Candytuft, the rich blue and purple of the curiously-named 

 Viper's Bugloss, the delicate yellow racemes of Wild Mignonette, 

 and a few stray Poppies. The colour effect was really magnifi- 

 cent, and, as seen towards evening, with the sun sinking in the 

 west, it was a sight worth walking some distance to behold. 



One of the most accommodating wild flowers which I delight 

 to notice, from early Spring to mid-Winter, is the Cow Parsnip. 

 Its umbrella -shaped heads of small flowers, each worthy of close 

 examination under a pocket microscope, make a brave show, 

 and are usually well tenanted in Summer with the Cardinal 

 Beetle, which, presumably, finds a store of nectar acceptable to 

 its palate. When the plant goes to seed in Autumn, I like to 

 watch the Sparrows and other Finches busily collecting the 



