138 KURAL PLACE-NAMES 



usually gets parched before they come into bloom. 

 Among these lowly herbs the stately spires of foxglove 

 and sulphur yellow mullein rise like torches ; while the 

 shingle just above tide-mark is gay with horn poppies 

 and woodvetch. 



In the garden rhododendrons of the finer sort have 

 had a fine innings. A large bush of R. cinnabarinum 

 has been in flower for fully two months, opening a long 

 succession of its scarlet and yellow trusses. The tube- 

 like blossoms are of the waxy consistency of a Lapa- 

 geria, and shower honey when lightly shaken ; but let 

 nobody rashly taste that nectar, for Sir Joseph Hooker, 

 when he first discovered this beautiful bush in the 

 Himalayas sixty years ago, warned us against its 

 poisonous properties, which, he said, were fatal to goats 

 and cattle browsing on the foliage. The young leaves 

 of this rhododendron, of a pearly glaucous hue dotted 

 with innumerable glands, are very pretty objects under 

 a magnifying glass. 



xxxiv 



There is something that appeals strongly to the 

 Rural imagination in the persistence of place- 

 Place- names, especially those which retain im- 

 sames pressions derived from primitive landscape 

 or from animals, trees, and herbs which once gave it a 

 specific character. For there is nothing more certain 

 than this, that every place-name ' growed,' like Topsy. 

 If it cannot be said that it surpasses human ingenuity 

 to invent a combination of meaningless syllables and 



