A GLANCE AT BRITISH WILD FLOWEES 163 



sweet, edible tuber at the root of it, and, to make 

 his words good, dug up one with his fingers, recall- 

 ing Caliban's words in the " Tempest " : — 



"And I, with my long nails, will dig thee pig-nuts." 

 The plant grows freely about England, but does not 

 seem to be troublesome as a weed. 



In a wooded slope beyond the brae, I plucked 

 my first woodruff, a little cluster of pure white 

 flowers, much like that of our saxifrage, with a 

 delicate perfume. Its stalk has a whorl of leaves 

 like the galium. As the plant dries its perfume 

 increases, and a handful of it will scent a room. 



The wild hyacinths, or bluebells, had begun to 

 fade, but a few could yet be gathered here and there 

 in the woods and in the edges of the fields. This 

 is one of the plants of which nature is very prodi- 

 gal in Britain. In places it makes the underwoods 

 as blue as the sky, and its rank perfume loads the 

 air. Tennyson speaks of "sheets of hyacinths." 

 We have no wood flower in the Eastern States that 

 grows in such profusion. 



Our flowers, like our birds and wild creatures, 

 are more shy and retiring than the British. They 

 keep more to the woods, and are not sowed so 

 broadcast. Herb Robert is exclusively a wood 

 plant with us, but in England it strays quite out 

 into the open fields and by the roadside. Indeed, 

 in England I found no so-called wood flower that 

 could not be met with more or less in the fields and 

 along the hedges. The main reason, perhaps, is 

 that the need of shelter is never so great there, 



