Wild Flowers and Variation 151 



generally be relied upon to retain its colour when transferred 

 to the garden. I have had a pink variety of Oxalis acetosella 

 on the rockery for years without its losing anything of its 

 beauty though all attempts to increase its depth of colour 

 failed, but removal of varieties of the Wood Anemone has 

 invariably been attended with disappointment. " It'll change 

 wi' the lift," as the old song says ; but why it should be so 

 still remains an unanswered question. 



The moors round Llanuwchllyn are rather remarkable for 

 the variations, both in form and colour, produced in many 

 of the common wild plants. Perhaps the humid climate, or 

 the frequently excessively wet soil, may have something to 

 do with it. At any rate, that is probably the chief cause of 

 the prevalence of viviparous forms amongst the grasses and 

 some of their allies. I constantly met with clumps of the 

 common Rush (Juncus glaucus] in which the development of 

 young plants in the flower-head was so pronounced as to 

 give the plant quite a hairy and conspicuous appearance ; 

 several of the other rushes producing similar varieties, in 

 nearly equal abundance. Amongst these, Juncus uliginosus^ 

 and /. acutiflorus, may be specially mentioned. I cannot 

 refrain, in passing, from allusion to one of the most useful 

 properties of rushes on a moor, or bog, so far as the 

 pedestrian is concerned. " Step on a rasher bush, and it 

 will no deceive ye," is an old Scotch proverb, the truth- 

 fulness of which is nowhere more apparent than on the 

 marshy uplands of Wales. The hassocks formed by 

 Rushes, Aria c<espitosa y or Carex paniculata, are often of 

 the utmost service to him whose path is intersected by a 

 bog, the soil gathered up and held together by the mass of 

 roots forming secure " stepping-stones," and enabling him 

 to cross dry-footed, where his less accustomed companion 

 may be wading knee-deep through mire and slush. 



On the sides of the railway, or in other places where 

 some protection has been afforded from the nibbling sheep, 

 large patches of Festuca ovina may be seen, every head of 

 which will be weighed down with the dense growth of 

 young seedlings upon it, and on the less accessible ledges of 

 many of the mountain crags, the same thing is very 



