128 THE BOOK OF THE OPEN AIR 



localities the larger Drosera anglica to a height of eight or even ten feet 

 has of late years been found. These and forming thickets which can be seen 

 pretty little plants are, it is well known, at some distance. Gerarde when he 

 insectivorous, a ruthless habit little first saw a clump of them afar off mis- 

 suspected by our early botanists. Old took the large leaves " spread abroad 

 Gerarde has much to say about " the like wings " for those of the ash-tree, 

 little herbe which groweth very low, and " much wondered thereat, think- 

 and hath a few leaves like an eare ing that he had never seen young ashes 

 picker, hairy and reddish, and having growing upon a bog." Formerly it 

 moisture upon them at the driest time seems to have been a common and 

 of the yeare and when the Sun shineth abundant plant in many parts of the 

 hottest at high noone," but he knows country. In the days of Queen Eliza- 

 nothing of its carnivorous ways. Nei- beth it grew " in the midst of a bog at 

 ther indeed did George Crabbe, when the further end of Hampstead Heath 

 in The Borough he speaks of some of near London, at the bottom of a hill 

 the bog-plants near Aldeburgh : adjoining to a small cottage " ; but 



by the year 1633 "it was all destroyed." 

 For there are blossoms rare, and curious rush, 



The gale's rich balm, and sundew's crimson In Hampshire, as we learn from an- 



blush, other early writer, it seems to have 



Whose velvet leaf, with radiant beauty dress'd been common in m oist, boggy 



Forms a gay pillow for the plover's breast. 



ditches ; and as late as the middle 



In company with the sundew, the of the last century it might be seen in 

 pale butterwort (Pinguicula lusitanica) parts of the New Forest " rearing its 

 will be found in most of the Forest golden-brown panicles six feet high, 

 bogs, and like its " cruel red-haired and covering in patches nearly a 

 neighbour," this delicate little plant quarter of an acre." In the neigh- 

 has acquired the curious and uncanny bourhood of Dorking, John Stuart 

 habit of catching and devouring live Mill found it in great luxuriance, form- 

 flies, ing " large and tall thickets visible at 

 At this season the flowering fern a great distance." The name of " Os- 

 (Osmunda regalis), sometimes called mund Royal " dates back to mediaeval 

 the royal fern and Osmund royal, is times, for it is so called by all the early 

 in full beauty. It is indeed a noble herbalists. Gerarde also speaks of it 

 and stately plant, sometimes growing as " Osmund the water-man," a hero 



