WINTER FOLIAGE 151 



hedgerows, can show many an example of evergreen 

 plants to gladden the eyes in winter-time. Scattered 

 throughout the Hampshire woods and coppices, at 

 Selborne, at Droxford and elsewhere, the spurge-laurel, 

 somewhat resembling a dwarf rhododendron with its 

 crown of glossy leaves, is frequently met with. The wild 

 privet, too, is abundant in many places and forms a 

 good growth of underwood in sheltered situations. In 

 hedgerows the privet bush is often conspicuous by 

 reason of its clusters of shining berries, on which the 

 bullfinch loves to feed. There are few more striking 

 effects of colour in winter-time, when snow is on the 

 ground, than a cock bullfinch, with its bright crimson 

 breast, feeding on the jet-black berries of the evergreen 

 privet. In some parts of England the wild madder, 

 called " evergreen cliver " in the Isle of Wight, is very 

 conspicuous, trailing with its dark green glossy leaves, 

 arranged in whorls usually of four or five, over the bare 

 brushwood. All along the undercliff it is abundant 

 " the most that ever I saw," wrote Dr William Turner 

 in the year 1551, " is in the Isle of Wight," where it en- 

 livens the monotony of the winter landscape by the 

 exuberant profusion with which it clothes the broken 

 ground and crumbling rocks of that attractive district. 

 Another humble evergreen is the wild periwinkle, which 

 may often be seen covering with a carpet of deepest 

 verdure the slopes and hollows of copses and wild 

 grounds. In similar situations will not infrequently be 

 seen shrubs of the knee-holme or butcher's-broom, well 

 described by an old herbalist as " a low woody plant, 

 having divers small branches or rather stems, of the 

 height of a foot, whereupon are set many leaves like 

 unto those of the Myrtle-tree, but sharpe and pricking 



