sr~~3S NATURE NEAR LONDON 



Silverweed lays its golden flower like a butter- 

 cup without a stalk level on the ground ; it has 

 no protection, and any passing foot may press it 

 into the dust. A few white or pink flowers 

 appear on the brambles, and in waste places a little 

 St. John's wort remains open, but the seed vessels 

 are for the most part forming. St. John's wort is 

 the flower of the harvest; the yellow petals appear 

 as the wheat ripens, and there are some to be 

 found till the sheaves are carted. Once now and 

 then a blue and slender bell-flower is lighted on ; in 

 Sussex the larger varieties bloom till much later. 



By still ponds, to which the moorhens have now 

 returned, tall spikes of purple loosestrife rise in 

 bunches. In the furze there is still much yellow, 

 and wherever heath grows it spreads in shim- 

 mering gleams of purple between the birches ; for 

 these three, furze, heath, and birch, are usually 

 together. The fields, therefore, are not yet flower- 

 less, nor yet without colour here and there, and 

 the leaves, which stay on the trees till late in the 

 autumn, are more interesting now than they have 

 been since they lost their first fresh green. 



Oak, elm, beech, and birch, all have yellow 

 spots, while retaining their groundwork of green. 

 Oaks are often much browner, but the moisture in 

 the atmosphere keeps the sap in the leaves. Even 

 the birches are only tinted in a few places, the 

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