Wild Flowers as They Grow 



little extravagantly, described as the " most spiritual, 

 impalpable, and yet far-spreading of all vegetable 

 odours, a perpetual pearl of simplicity intermingled 

 with fragrance." 



As the flowers fade the plant increases rather 

 than diminishes in beauty. 



" The Traveller's Joy, 

 Most dainty when its flowers assume 

 The autumn form of feathery plume," 



wrote Bishop Mant, for the upper part of each 

 thread of the fruiting brush begins to grow and 

 curl outwards, while the little fruits swell and push 

 apart. They are now of a pinkish colour, and each 

 carries a lengthening plume of silvery-grey, most 

 delicately fringed. By degrees clusters of silvery- 

 grey fluff stud the branches where the flowers have 

 been, and are the reason for a pretty name of the 

 plant — " Silver Bush." Other names, owing their 

 birth to aspects of the plant at this stage, are 

 "Greybeards," "Daddy's Beard," "Old Man," 



" Old Man's Beard," and " Old Man Woozard." 



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