AN APRIL SHOWER 



much they miss ! it is a great mistake to confuse 

 rarity and beauty. They will rave over the blue of 

 Gentiana verna (and rightly so), but is there no 

 beauty in a blue pimpernel or the ubiquitous lobelia ? 

 After all, if I cannot grow EritricJiium nanum I can 

 still admire and love the blue forget-me-not which 

 grows of itself. Our views are sadly distorted when we 

 admire only on account of rarity or an assumed (but 

 perchance accidental) triumph of culture, and fail to 

 fall down and worship before a field of golden cowslips 

 or a bank of nodding thistles. 



75 



A BANK OF NODDING THISTLKS 



