IX ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FLOWERS 211 



before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March 

 with beauty " ; the wild hyacinths, whose nodding bells, of 

 exquisite form and colour individually, carpet our woods in 

 April with sheets of the purest azure ; the soft yellow of 

 primroses in coppices or along sunny hedge banks ; the rich 

 golden yellow of the gorse-bushes which, when seen in 

 perfection as in the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, or Ireland, is 

 so superlatively glorious, that we cannot wonder at the 

 enthusiasm of the great Linnaeus, who, on beholding it, 

 knelt down and thanked God for so much beauty ; later 

 on, the clearer yellow of the bloom is hardly less brilliant 

 on our heaths and railway banks, while the red ragged- 

 robin, and the purple or rosy orchises often adorn our 

 marshes and meadows with masses of colour ; then come 

 the fields and dry slopes, gay with scarlet poppies, and the 

 noble spikes of foxgloves in the copses and on rough 

 banks, followed by, perhaps, the most exquisitely beautiful 

 sight of all, the brilliant sheets and patches of purple 

 heath, sometimes alternating with the tender green of the 

 young bracken, as on some of the mountain slopes in Wales, 

 sometimes intermingled with the rich golden clumps 

 of the dwarf gorse, as on the wild heaths of Surrey or 

 Dorset. 



Truly, the Englishman has no need to go abroad to 

 revel in the beauty of colour as produced by flowers. 

 Although the number of species of plants which inhabit 

 our islands is far less than in most continental areas of 

 equal extent, although the gloom and grey of our skies is 

 proverbial and we miss the bright sunshine of American 

 or Eastern summers, yet these deficiencies do not appear 

 to lessen the luxuriant display of bright colours in our 

 native plants. The mountains of Smtzerland, the arid 

 plains of the Cape and of Australia, the forests and swamps 

 of North America, provide us with thousands of beautiful 

 flowers for the adornment of our gardens and greenhouses, 

 yet, from the descriptions of these countries by travellers or 

 by residents, it does not seem that any one of them pro- 

 duces a succession of floral pictures to surpass, or even to 

 equal, those which the changing seasons display before us 

 at our very doors. The absence of fierce, long-continued 



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