IN MIDSUMMER FIELDS 121 



book, faithless in its mission, was thrown into the fire, for 

 it had misnamed and had led astray ideals. As life went 

 on the cowslip illusion remained. No flower in all floral 

 history has a more contradictory record. 



Another May, and a cowslip hunt led the way in tri- 

 umph to a colony of dodecatheons, shooting stars, the 

 "cowslip" of many botanists, a flower pale and rosy, with 

 a beaked tip, and called by the children "bird-bills." 



And when another season came, and the same cowslip 

 lover went hunting the fairy flower of youth, a learned 

 botanist led the way through dark woods and wet places, 

 through bracken and moss, where an opening let the sun- 

 shine in, and there, bluer than the sky, drooped the bells 

 of mertensia virginica. 



"Behold the cowslip," he cried, "and I am the only 

 man in these parts that knows the true cowslip !" 



The flower lover was silent. Let the Persians call their 

 cyclamens violets or cowslips, a rose by any other name; 

 time had taught her that flower-naming was as much an 

 invention as the christening of stars, and that the yellow 

 cowslip dared hold its sway unshaken. For had not a 

 well-thumbed old botany book named it, and the great 

 authorities hinted that it was "sometimes so called" ? 



