Wild Flowers as They Grow 



tion may be found in the fact that the romance of 

 the Heath is far older than legend and fairy tale, 

 and lies in eras which even tradition cannot reach. 

 For the Sherlock Holmes among the botanists, 

 deducing much from little evidence, aided and 

 abetted, too, by the geologist on this occasion, says 

 that the Heath is the flower of a lost continent, a 

 continent whose existence is highly mythological. 

 Plato spoke of this land as Atlantis, other chroniclers 

 refer to it as Lyonesse, and it was supposed to have 

 lain out in the Atlantic, joining Ireland, the Scilly 

 Isles, Spain and the Azores. Here the Heath was 

 a native, and from thence it spread somewhat east- 

 ward. Then came a great subsidence — of the actual 

 catastrophe tradition can tell nothing — and only a 

 patch of land here and there remained above the 

 waters, but the Heath was left on all, and certain 

 rare species found only in Cornwall, Ireland and 

 Spain speak of the vanished land-links. All the 

 species — and there are four hundred of them — still 



belong to the region of the Atlantic, and are known 



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