46 NATUllE NEAR LONDON. 



mound (cropped because enclosing a cornfield) there 

 grows a solitary shrub of the wayfaring tree. Though 

 well known elsewhere, there is not, so far as I am 

 aware, another bush of it for miles, and I should not 

 have noticed this had not this part of the highway 

 been so pleasant a place to stroll to and fro in almost 

 all the year. The twigs of the wayfaring tree are 

 covered with a mealy substance which comes off on 

 the fingers when touched. A stray shrub or plant 

 like this sometimes seems of more interest than a whole 

 group. 



For instance, most of the cottage gardens have fox- 

 gloves in them, but I had not observed any wild, till 

 one afternoon near some woods I found a tall and 

 beautiful foxglove, richer in colour than the garden 

 specimens, and with bells more thickly crowded, 

 lifting its spike of purple above the low cropped haw- 

 thorn. In districts where the soil is favourable to the 

 foxglove it would not have been noticed, but here, 

 alone and unexpected, it was welcomed. The bees in 

 spring come to the broad wayside sward by the great 

 mound to the bright dandelions ; presently to the 

 white clover, and later to the heaths. 



There are about sixty wild flowers which grow 

 freely along this road, namely, yellow agrimony, 

 amphibious persicaria, arum, avens, bindweed, bird's 

 foot lotus, bittersweet, blackberry, black and white 

 bryony, brooklime, burdock, buttercups, wild camo- 

 mile, wild carrot, celandine — the great and lesser — 

 cinquefoil, cleavers, corn buttercup, corn mint, corn 

 sowthistle, and spurrey, cowslip, cow-parsnip, wild 

 parsley, daisy, dandelion, dead nettle, and white dog 



