THE FLORA OF FAVERSHAM. 251 
claims its share, though here happily but a modest one. And the 
blackened walls and palings of the powder-mill have crept round 
at least one spot that was famous of yore (a yore of but few years) 
in our floral annals, and their fatal embrace has strangled and 
smothered two or three most dainty beauties that affected such 
a perilous neighbourhood. Moreover the marshes generally are 
now in the hands of Commissioners. Oh, names of ill omen to 
Botanists, as well as to “dons and chiefs” of old Alma Mater! 
Empowered by Act of Imperial Parliament to dig, scavenge, 
rake, cut, and do what seems them good in the dykes and drains. 
And too well do they execute their office: year after year the 
spade, aud the sweeping scythe, and the long gaff-hook repeat 
the slaughter of ten thousand floral innocents. One more croak, 
and I will cease my raven-like burden of woes. Even now there 
are eventualities which it is not pleasant to contemplate. Many, 
many of our fairest, rarest flowers are sleeping now their quiet 
dreamless winter sleep, unconscious that a sword hangs by a hair 
over their heads, that their pleasant sunny existences are at the 
mercy of farmers, commissioners, builders, roadmakers,—Goths 
and Vandals all! One little hedge, still left only because it serves 
to shelter a hop-garden, is the home of the two or three plants 
of Lathyrus sylvestris that still cling to our hedgeless neighbour- 
hood. O Humulus, own brother of the pretty climber, shoot up 
and bourgeon well, and hang thine odorous clusters thickly 
around the staff that bears thee up, lest haply the mandate of the 
impatient grower go forth for thy destruction—and hors! Once 
more, it only needs a few more mushroom houses to shoot up 
along the creek-side (and they already almost outflank on the 
opposite bank), and Buplewrum tenuissimum (humble annual, but 
rare) will be numbered with the hundred flowers that were in 
the good old days of Faversham, when the Abbey still stood, but 
are not now, even as the Abbey is not. But 
“¢ Croak, croak, croak!’ quoth the Raven bold, 
*T may croak till I’m hoarse, I may croak till they ’re old, 
And they’ll never heed me, these delvers in mould, 
Blind moles as they are, aye grubbing for gold.’ ” 
So thereupon “ flap went Ais wings and away.” This is not ex 
actly what I intend to do, but rather without further “ croaking ” 
to plunge in medias res, and describe, as fully and yet concisely 
as I can, the most marked features of the Flora of Faversham 
