NIGHTINGALE EOAD. 47 



rose, and trailing rose, violets, the sweet and the 

 scentless, figwort, veronica, ground ivy, willowherb, 

 two sorts, herb Robert, honeysuckle, lady's smock, 

 purple loosestrife, mallow, meadow orchis, meadow- 

 sweet, yarrow, moon daisy, St. John's wort, pim- 

 pernel, water plaintain, poppy, rattles, scabious, self- 

 heal, silverweed, sow thistle, stitchwort, teazles, 

 tormentil, vetches, and yellow vetch. 



To these may be added an occasional bacon and 

 eggs, a few harebells (plenty on higher ground), the 

 yellow iris, by the adjoining brook, and flowering 

 shrubs and trees, as dogwood, gorse, privet, black- 

 thorn, hawthorn, horse chestnut, besides wild hops, 

 the horsetails on the mounds, and such plants as 

 grow everywhere, as chickweed, groundsel, and so 

 forth. A solitary shrub of mugwort grows at some 

 distance, but in the same district, and in one hedge- 

 row the wild guelder rose flourishes. Anemones and 

 primroses are not found along or near this road, nor 

 woodruff. At the first glance a list like this reads as 

 if flowers abounded, but the reverse is the impression 

 to those who frequent the place. 



It is really a very short list, and as of course all 

 of these do not appear at once there really is rather 

 a scarcity of wild flowers, so far at least as variety 

 goes. Just in the spring there is a burst of colour, 

 and again in the autumn ; but for the rest, if we set 

 aside the roses in June, there seems quite an absence 

 of flowers during the summer. The wayside is green, 

 the ditches are green, the mounds green ; if you enter 

 and stroll round the meadows, they are green too, or 

 white in places with umbelliferous plants, principally 



