Thames Reeds and Lilies 105 



yellowest green is that of the bur-reed, which in 

 July and August lifts high its branching flower- 

 stems with their heads of silver burs. The next 

 darkest shade is that of the sword-like iris, slower 

 and more stubborn of growth. The leaves of both 

 these plants are often waved or ribbed like the 

 sandbanks beneath the willows, apparently from 

 an inequality in the rates of growth of the mid-rib 

 and the outer margins, probably due to frost. The 

 deepest and most hoary green is that of the sharp 

 pond-sedge, which droops a little later its dark 

 tassels of grass-like flower. 



These three abundant plants form thick beds 

 along most reaches of the river, and are inter- 

 spersed with several other species of sedge-like 

 water-plants which are less common, or less con- 

 spicuous in growth. The tall tapers of the giant 

 rush mount singly above the slopes of sedge, or 

 form broad beds amid the water in the lee of the 

 promontories and eyots. Its pithy stems are as 

 thick as a man's finger, and form a favourite food 

 for water-rats, which fell them and cut them into 

 floating lengths, both to eat and to rest upon while 

 eating. On some of the tributaries in winter half 

 a cart-load or more of these floating lengths of 

 rushes can sometimes be found lodged against a 

 dipping hawthorn or willow-trunk, and choking 

 all the surface of the stream. Where the beds 

 wither as they stand, the swifter currents set their 

 dried stems pattering together in day-long talk. 

 The stateliness of growth which distinguishes the 

 giant rush is shared by many other plants of the 



