XXIII 

 BLUE COLUMBINE AND CHEQUERED DAFFODIL 



"Thou perceivest the flowers put forth their precious odours, 

 And none can tell how from so small a centre comes such sweet, 

 Forgetting that within that centre Eternity expands 

 Its ever-during doors, that Og and Anak fiercely guard." 



BLAKE. 



T TOWEVER much one may go terbourne Gunner I found a small, 

 * about in search of all the natural- pretty red flower, new to me, growing 

 1st most delights in seeing, one is by the road in the greatest abundance, 

 bound to miss a number of notable For a space of three or four hundred 

 things. My experience is that a season yards the hedge-side was sprinkled with 

 never ends during which I have not its lovely little stars. It was a geran- 

 come by chance, as it were, on some- ium, prettier than any red geranium 

 thing desirable, perhaps long desired, known to me, the delicate tender 

 yet never previously seen ; and the colour resembling that of the red horse- 

 fact that it was stumbled upon when chestnut flower. On inquiring at the 

 not being sought, that there was the cottages in the neighbourhood the 

 element of surprise, added greatly to people told me they knew the plant, 

 the pleasure. It may be a bird, or but had no name for it ; also that they 

 mammal, or some rare or lustrous in- had never seen it at any other spot, 

 sect ; but it is in plant life where the It turned out to be Geranium pyren- 

 surprises that make us happy are most aicum, a native of central and eastern 

 frequent, even to one, like myself, Europe, and believed by some botanists 

 who is not a " painfull and industrious to be indigenous in this country. It 

 searcher of plantes," and knows little probably varies in colour, since it is 

 of their science. For not only are the described in some of the books as 

 species so numerous as to be practi- purple or pale purple, whereas in the 

 cally innumerable to any person who flowers I found there was no trace of 

 would see all things for himself, but such a colour. 



many of the most attractive kinds are I had but a short time before met 

 either rare or exceedingly local in with a similar experience with regard 

 their distribution. to another more important flower- 

 To give an instance : One day dur- our wild columbine, 

 ing the late summer, between Salisbury In spring I was staying at a small 

 and the neighbouring village of Win- village among the Wiltshire downs, a 



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