WILD FLOWERS. 43 



whose leaves are so plain and petals so blue. Many 

 names increase the trouble of identification, and 

 confusion is made certain by the use of various 

 systems of classification. The flower itself I knew, 

 its] name I could not be sure of — not even from the 

 illustration, which was incorrectly coloured; the 

 central white spot of the flower was reddish in the 

 plate. This incorrect colouring spoils much of the 

 flower-picturing done; pictures of flowers and birds 

 are rarely accurate unless hand-painted. Any one 

 else, however, would have been quite satisfied that the 

 identification was right. I was too desirous to be 

 correct, too conscientious, and thus a summer went 

 by with little progress. If you really wish to identify 

 with certainty, and have no botanist friend and no 

 magnum opus of Sowerby to refer to, it is very difficult 

 indeed to be quite sure. There was no Sowerby, no 

 Bentham, no botanist friend — no one even to give the 

 common country names ; for it is a curious fact that 

 the country people of the time rarely know the names 

 put down as the vernacular for flowers in the books. 

 No one there could tell me the name of the marsh- 

 marigold which grew thickly in the water-meadows — 

 "A sort of big buttercup," that was all they knew. 

 Commonest of common plants is the '' sauce alone " — in 

 <3very hedge, on every bank, the whitish-green leaf is 

 found — yet I could not make certain of it. If some 

 one tells you a plant, you know it at once and never 

 forget it, but to learn it from a book is another 

 matter ; it does not at once take root in the mind, it 

 has to be seen several times before you are satisfied — 

 you waver in your convictions. The leaves were 



