British Wild Flowers and Trees 215 



The first plant named in books of British Plants 

 is the Traveller's Joy (Clematis Vitalba), the well- 

 known common Clematis that streams over the trees, 

 and falls in graceful folds from trees in many parts 

 of the south, of England, having in autumn heads 

 of feathery awns. It is well known as a garden plant, 

 and from its rapidity of growth nothing is better 

 adapted for quickly covering rough mounds or bowers. 

 However, it may be best used in the shrubbery, and 

 particularly so on the margin of a river, or water, 

 where the long streamers of its branchlets are graceful. 

 It is the only native plant that gives an idea of the 

 ' bush ropes ' that run in wild profusion through tropical 

 woods. We have the Meadow Rues, which early in 

 this book we have seen a figure as showing plants 

 of some claim to beauty not often seen in the ordinary 

 garden : the elegant lesser Meadow Rue (Thalictrum 

 minus), so like the Maidenhair fern that some say 

 it is as pretty for the open air as the Maidenhair 

 fern is for the greenhouse. It is wild in many parts 

 of Britain, in Scotland and north-western England, 

 and rather abundant on the island of Ireland's Eye, 

 near Dublin, and in many parts of the limestone 

 districts of Clare and Galway. There are several 

 other species, natives of Britain, but none of them 

 showing any gain on this kind. 



Native Windflowers. Next come the Windflowers, 

 or Anemones, four kinds, at least two of them — 

 A. nemorosa, the wood Anemone, and A- apennina, 



