AUTUMN FLOWERS 211 



miring the rich tangle of an osier-bed on the 

 Itchen. Here was the later willow-herb (Epilobium 

 hirsutum), spangled with carmine ; the meadow-sweet, 

 with creamy corymbs as fragrant as on midsummer 

 day ; white convolvulus ; bitter-sweet, bearing purple 

 and yellow flowers mingled with its scarlet berries ; 

 white valerian and pink hemp agrimony; yellow 

 marsh Lysimachia and crimson loosestrife all these 

 be flowers of stature. Of more lowly growth are the 

 St. John's worts, golden elecampane, and violet 

 skullcap. This last, however, is not the six-inch 

 dwarf one has seen in the shingle beside a Highland 

 loch ; here, heat and moisture have encouraged it to 

 a height of a couple of feet. The glow of colour 

 and the rich setting of reeds and other foliage are 

 what the eye may revel in with content for a long 

 time. 



Then the hedge dividing the osiers from the road 

 is draped with graceful briony and wild clematis. 

 Why is this British clematis, with its wan, incon- 

 spicuous flowers, called traveller's joy ? It is the 

 poor relation of the brilliant exotic species, and 

 there are showier herbs in which wayfarers might 

 be expected to take more delight. Across the road 

 yawns a deserted chalk-pit (not the one where 



