94 THE CROSS-BEARERS 



lime rubbish for such plants as like it. The plants 

 send their roots down through the chips and grit to 

 the nourishing stuff below, and the coarse filling 

 secures them alike from stagnant damp in winter and 

 parching drought in summer. Of course, a drain must 

 be laid to carry off water from the base of the moraine, 

 and some experts so arrange as to have a flow passing 

 through the bed throughout the summer, and so delude 

 the mountain herbs into believing that the glacier is 

 sending them its customary relief. But they do quite 

 as well without this little fraud. 



XV 



The name has here no connection with any human 

 The Cross- organisation, religious, social, or otherwise ; 



bearers it ig used simply to designate a very numer- 

 ous clan of herbs established in every part of the globe, 

 north and south, except a few districts in th^ tropics. 

 Infinite as are its varieties in colour, scent, and habit, 

 every member of the clan bears the distinctive badge, 

 namely, four petals set in the form of a cross, whence 

 their scientific title of Oruciferce or Cross-bearers, to be 

 known in English as the Cress Family. 



It is indeed an immense clan, ranged botanically in 

 more than twelve hundred species, many of them of 

 much economic importance, for among them are to 

 be reckoned cabbage, turnip, sea-kale, radish, and so 

 forth. One humble member of the clan was brought 

 to my knowledge in childhood through a chance of 

 observation of Dr. Scoresby, the Arctic explorer, who 

 died in 1857. Picking a bit of scurvy grass (Cochlearia 



