50 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



itself. The blue fleabane, which is by no means a 

 common plant, is usually found on downs or heath- 

 lands, but there, on the coping of the Canon's wall, it 

 blossoms every summer, in company with a patch of 

 delicate hair-bell, which also loves the open country. 

 Strange to say, the blue fleabane is a scarce plant about 

 Winchester, but in some unknown manner it has found 

 its way to the friendly seclusion of the Close wall, and 

 there it has flourished happily for many years. Far 

 rarer, however, than the blue fleabane is the purple 

 Linaria (L. purpurea, L.), so rare indeed that it has not 

 acquired an English name, for its true home is on the 

 mountains of Hungary. It is a tall and stately plant, 

 with a long slender spike of purple flowers, and so con- 

 spicuous when standing on the top of a wall that it 

 cannot fail to arrest the attention. And on the top of 

 the Close wall it flourishes, out of harm's way, some 

 eighteen to twenty feet above the roadway, and makes 

 a fine show in late summer-time. How or when it got 

 there is unknown. It is not recorded for any other 

 locality in Hampshire, or indeed in the adjacent coun- 

 ties ; but on the summit of the lofty monastic walls 

 which enclose the north-west corner of the old Benedic- 

 tine monastery it has been observed for many years. 

 It is beyond question the most distinguished denizen 

 of our ancient walls, and corresponds to the rare Scnecio 

 which graces the walls of Oxford, to the wall-rocket of 

 Southampton, the wild pink of Beaulieu, the Sedum of 

 Portchester, the little Holosteum of Norwich and Bury 

 St Edmunds, the " London rocket " which, after the 

 Great Fire, covered the blackened ruins. Our purple 

 Linaria is now spreading to other walls in Winchester, 

 and even appears as a weed in the Close gardens. 



