142 THE MUSIC OF WILD FLOWERS 



seeing it growing abundantly in a similar situation 

 between Lyme Regis and Pinny, on the coast of 

 Devonshire. The goose-grass or cleavers, a near 

 relative of the madder, very common along our 

 hedgerows, also possesses hooked bristles. The 

 brambles, as is well known, are armed with formid- 

 able prickles, and so are some of the wild roses, 

 which enable them to climb over the highest hedge- 

 rows, where they put forth in the June sunlight their 

 exquisite flowers. 



But of all our climbing plants which lend grace and 

 beauty to the country-side the most conspicuous is the 

 wild Clematis or old-man's-beard, which, when the 

 roses are over, deck with the hoary plumes of its seed- 

 vessels the autumn hedgerows. Gerard, with happy 

 inspiration, called the plant " the Traveller's Joy," 

 because " of its decking and adorning wayes and 

 hedges where people travel." After the clusters of 

 white flowers come, as he says, " great tufts of flat 

 seeds, each seed having a fine white plume like a feather 

 fastened to it, which maketh in the winter a goodly 

 shew, covering the hedges white all over with his 

 feather-like tops." The traveller's joy has a curious 

 method of climbing. It is a leaf -climber, using its 

 petioles or leaf-stalks as a means of attaching itself to 

 the stems and branches of other plants. In winter the 

 blades of the leaves drop off, leaving the clasping petioles 

 attached to the branches, which then have the appear- 

 ance of true tendrils. It is a local plant, entirely 

 absent in some districts and very abundant in others. 

 In the chalk districts of Hampshire it is very abundant, 

 and the hedgerows never look more beautiful, except, 

 of course, when the dog-roses are in bloom, than in late 



