AUGUST 183 



Yellow abounds in native flowers too numerous to 

 mention daffodils, marsh marigold, globe flowers, 

 primrose, cinquefoils, and the interminable series of 

 hawkweeds and buttercups; crocus, pansy, vetches, 

 wood and field geraniums supply rich purples. No 

 blue excels that of the vernal gentian for intensity or 

 that of forget-me-not for purity, and there is all the 

 host of harebells, wood hyacinth, and others to vary 

 the key and the season. At the present moment the 

 southern embankment of the Highland line between 

 Novar and Alness is enriched with viper's bugloss, 

 forming a far-seen sheet of vivid blue. Our white wild 

 flowers include such variety as snowdrops, lily-of-the- 

 valley, bladder-campion, water-lilies, the quaint little 

 dwarf cornel (Cornus suecica), whose berries, immense 

 in proportion to its stature, supply that colour which 

 is so scarce among our native flowers, for they glow 

 like scarlet sealing-wax. Of pink and crimson there 

 is no lack. Ragged robin, rose campion, sea- thrift, 

 centaury, and roses supply the first, and the second is 

 almost too prevalent, merging, as it often does, into 

 that dangerously strong tint upon which milliners 

 bestowed the name of magenta some fifty years ago. 

 Perhaps it is our cloudy climate that infuses a cold 

 tinge into the crimson of many orchises, of foxglove, 

 willow-herb, the spineless or melancholy thistle, the 

 mountain saxifrage, and that pretty plant whose 

 English name must be softly breathed lest it suggest 

 a vulgar execration the bloody cranesbill (Geranium 

 sanguineum). Note that the two varieties of this 

 pretty geranium known respectively as lancastriense 



