Thames Reeds and Lilies 109 



near relative, the scorpion-grass, which is the wild 

 original of most of the forget-me-nots grown in 

 gardens, but has a much smaller and less brilliant 

 blossom. The scorpion-grass is as thorough a 

 native of dry soils as the true forget-me-not is of 

 wet ; but it often finds a congenial foothold by the 

 river on those steep little earthy cliffs where the king- 

 fishers bore their nesting-tunnels. In the brisker 

 currents of some of the narrower backwaters, or 

 where a little brook runs down to join the river, 

 the brooklime, or water speedwell, gleams with its 

 smaller blossoms of deeper sapphire blue. The 

 name of water speedwell is also borne by the similar 

 but larger species, abundant in many of the Thames- 

 side ditches, of which the flowers are still smaller and 

 pink. 



Besides the many tall and slender species which 

 are especially characteristic of the long, green walls 

 and shadowy colonnades of the river channels from 

 early May, a variety of broader-leaved and more 

 profusely blossoming marsh plants luxuriate by 

 the water-sides and in the shallows. One of the 

 earliest and largest of these is the common comfrey, 

 with its rough leaves and bell-shaped blossoms of 

 purple, pink, or white. Plants of three separate 

 species could not do more to brighten the water-side 

 in the earliest weeks of summer than this resource- 

 ful flower, which so often strews the swollen current 

 with its fallen corollas under the storms of May. 

 Blossoms of all three colours are equally common ; 

 but each plant is constant to one choice, so that 

 the water-side is diversified with a bolder contrast 



