212 SEPTEMBER 



the red-backed shrike nested), its entrance guarded 

 by an array of stately mulleins shafts of sulphur- 

 coloured flowers rising from great cushions of grey 

 velvet leaves, broidered round with wild verbena, 

 scabious of lavender hue, and viper's bugloss of 

 intense azure. Farther in there are clusters of the 

 quaint teazle, still carrying its cupped leaf axils full 

 of the shower that fell three days ago. The hollow 

 wood beyond is gay with scarlet fruit-spikes of 

 cuckoo-pint which flowered in April, and beside the 

 river margin the great water-dock has tossed a 

 sanguine spray of seed-vessels far above its noble 

 foliage. Perhaps in no other part of England, not- 

 withstanding the extraordinary variety of its soil, 

 could there be produced such a varied company of 

 autumn flowers as are gathered here in the space of 

 half an acre, between the marshy osier-bed and the 

 dry chalk-pit. 



The great blue salvia (Salma patens) is not un- 

 common as a bedding-plant in our gardens, and its 

 splendid azure blossoms are a noble adornment to 

 autumnal borders. But it is only in the west that 

 it can be treated as a hardy herbaceous plant. There 

 is one under the window of my bedroom which has 

 never failed us during eighteen years, though it has 



