4 WATSIDE WEEDS. 



.strange and unknown — to the novice we might say 

 chaotic — but who does not know the first easy 

 paths which guide us into Flora's realms? Are 

 they not to every child bordered and carpeted with 

 daisies, and buttercups, and sweet-scented violets ? 

 Have we not picked in them chickweed and 

 groundsel for our favourite birds, and looked at 

 the scarlet poppies somewhat doubtfully as poison- 

 ous, putting them under the same anathema as 

 "hemlock,^' which, however, was often not hem- 

 lock at all? Then, £|igain, are not these paths 

 overhung with the wild rose and honeysuckle for 

 our summer shade ? And when, after long absence, 

 it may be, in the smoky town or in some foreign 

 clime, we return to retread the once well-known 

 paths again, and see these old fanliliar faces, do we 

 not know their names as well as we do our own ? 



" The cowslip, crocus, columbine. 

 The Tiolet and the snowdrop fine, 

 The orchis 'neath the hawthorn tree, 

 The blue-bell and anemone, 

 The wild rose, eglantine, and daisy." 



We know them all, and many another, without any 

 teaching. 



Truly this name-knowledge is no despicable 

 foundation for our future botanical education — a far 

 better one than we could find for any other science ; 

 sounder, too, for it has not only a place in the head 

 but in the heart; dull and dead must that heart 



