The Toy River 



wild horses shall not drag that from me. It is 

 constructed in three reaches, a pool, a waterless 

 waterfall, and a lake. The bed is built of bricks 

 and rubble cemented over so that with the inter- 

 mittent flow of water from the top there may not 

 be stagnation and foul gases. 



The river is bordered by dense vegetation. 

 Rhododendrons hide the mystery of its origin, and 

 ferns and hanging plants conceal its banks. Giant 

 asphodel (eremurus himalaicus and e. himrob and 

 e. robustus), prickly rhubarb (gunnera), iris, heaths, 

 lilies of all kinds, megasea, bamboos, ceanothus, 

 the crab tree — all are mirrored in the river. . . . 

 Over the bridge trails wistaria, and hard by it 

 grow white lupins and budleia Veitchii, with its 

 handsome mauve heads. Stonecrop clambers about 

 the rocks under Verrocchio's Boy, and on either 

 side, along the wall that used to be the grassy 

 slope — a wall built of pine-logs, and topped with 

 flat stones — are iris, and love-lies-bleeding, and, 

 hanging over, cranesbill, pinks, sunroses, and iberis. 



Behind it, between the steps and the bridge, is 

 a laburnum Adami, which bears yellow and purple 

 flowers together. It is a freak. The unfailing 

 Robinson describes it : 



" L. Adami has long been a puzzle to botanists, 

 who even now cannot account for its peculiar 



I5 1 



