A GLANCE AT BRITISH WILD FLOWERS. 179 



there. This, my companion said, was pig-nut, or 

 ground-chestnut, and*that there was a sweet, edible 

 tuber at the root of it, and to make his words good, 

 dug up one with his fingers, recalling Caliban's words 

 in the " Tempest " : 



" And I, with my long nails, will dig thee pig-nuts." 



The plant grows freely about England, but does not 

 seem to be troublesome as a weed. 



In a wooded slope beyond the brae, I plucked my 

 first woodruff, a little cluster of pure white flowers, 

 much like that of our saxifrage, with a delicate per- 

 fume. Its stalk has a whorl of leaves like the gal- 

 lium. As the plant dries its perfume increases, and 

 a handful of it will scent a room. 



The wild hyacinths, or bluebells, had begun to 

 fade, but a few could yet be gathered here and 

 there in the woods and in the edges of the fields. 

 This is one of the plants of which Nature is very 

 prodigal in Britain. In places it makes the under- 

 woods as blue as the sky, and its rank perfume loads 

 the air. Tennyson speaks of " sheets of hyacinths." 

 We have no wood flower in the Eastern States that 

 grows in such profusion. 



Our flowers, like our birds and wild creatures, are 

 more shy and retiring than the British. They keep 

 more to the woods, and are not sowed so broadcast. 

 Herb Robert is exclusively a wood plant with us, but 

 in England it strays quite out into the open fields 

 and by the roadside. Indeed, in England I found no 



