298 THE LAND'S END 



overgrown with bramble mixed with furze in flower 

 and bracken in its vivid green, and scattered groups 

 or thickets of hawthorn and blackthorn, with tangles 

 and trails of ivy, briony, traveller's joy and honey- 

 suckle. Yet the loveliness of our plant in such sur- 

 roundings is to my mind exceeded by the furze when 

 it possesses the entire ground and you have its splen- 

 dour in fullest measure. Then, too, you can best 

 enjoy its fragrance. This has a peculiar richness, and 

 has been compared with pineapple and cocoanut ; I 

 should say cocoanut and honey, and we might even 

 liken it to apple-tart with clove for scent and flavour. 

 Anyway, there is something fruity and appetising in 

 the smell ; but this is not all, since along with that 

 which appeals to the lower sense there is a more subtle 

 quality, ethereal and soul-penetrating, like the per- 

 fume of the mignonette, the scented orchis, violet, 

 bog asphodel, narcissus and vernal squill. It may be 

 said that flower-scents are of two sorts : those which, 

 like fruits, suggest flavours, and those which are 

 wholly unassociated with taste, and are of all odours 

 the most emotional because of their power of recall- 

 ing past scenes and events. In the perfume of the 

 furze both qualities, the sensuous and the spiritual, 

 are combined : doubtless it was the higher quality 

 which Swinburne had in his mind when he sang 



The whin was frankincense and flame. 



But we regard vision as the higher or more intel- 

 lectual sense, and seeing is best ; and it was the sight 

 of blossoming furze which caused Linnaeus, on his 



