236 HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. 



look for Shakespeare's Mary-buds Marsh Mari- 

 golds we now call them (Caltha palustris). They 

 will obtrude themselves on your attention if they 

 are within a quarter of a mile, with their great 

 gorgeously -yellow blossoms and shining green leaves. 

 Surely a prettier plant than this is not included 

 in our English flora ! By-and-by you will notice 

 how curiously the capsules shed their seeds, just as 

 if they knew what they were about. 



Let us return to our shady green lanes. In the 

 northern and midland counties particularly, these 

 are the places to find that stately flower the most 

 imperial of our indigenous kind the Foxglove 

 (Purpura digitalis). Who does not know its purple 

 flowers? or what boy has not closed one end, and 

 after filling the glove with his breath, suddenly 

 clapt it on his hand, in order to hear the sharp 

 sound it made when bursting ? Its common name 

 is a good illustration of how such terms have been 

 corrupted. Originally it was " folks' gleow " that 

 is, fairies music. The fairies have given their names 

 to more than one of our common plants, just as, in 

 old Catholic times, the Virgin did. The latter may 

 be recognised in "wary-buds," "lady's smock,'" 

 " lady's mantle," " lady's bedstraw," &c. A power- 

 ful medicine (digitalis} is made from the foxglove. 

 The hedges in June and July are quite gay with 

 such plants as the White and Yellow Bedstraw 

 (" fcede-straw," as it was formerly called), which 

 grow up almost to the tops of the hawthorn, where 



