SOME EARLY FLOWERS 277 



vanilla, also that the plant is an alien, but when 

 introduced they do not say. The Victorian History 

 of Cornwall does not mention such a plant. I have 

 looked at the MS. work of John Rolfe (1878) on the 

 plants of West Cornwall, in the Penzance Library, 

 but he does not tell us how long ago it ran wild in 

 this district. It flourishes greatly at Penzance, 

 St. Ives and many of the neighbouring villages, root- 

 ing itself in the stone hedges and covering them 

 entirely with a marvellously beautiful garment of 

 round, disc-shaped, flat leaves, of all sizes from that 

 of a crown piece to that of a dessert plate, all of the 

 most vivid green in nature. The flowers, of a dim 

 lilac-purple, are on thick straight stems which spring 

 directly from the roots, and, like sweet violets, they 

 are mostly hidden by the luxuriant leaves. The leaves, 

 which come in winter and spring, last pretty well all 

 the year round, and the roots, the gardeners say, are 

 enormous, and as they push through the crevices and 

 wind themselves about among the stones it is impos- 

 sible to get rid of the plant. 



One of the prettiest scenes I witnessed in West 

 Cornwall is associated with this plant. I saw a girl of 

 about seventeen, small for her age and of a slim 

 figure, come out of a cottage door and walk down to 

 the little garden gate just as I came abreast of it. At 

 the gate was a little foot-bridge over a stream which 

 rushed by with a good deal of noise and foam over 

 the rocks in its bed. The stone hedges and detached 

 masses of rock on both sides of the bridge were 

 covered over with an enormous growth of colt's-foot, 



