RAMBLES IN SARK. 



193 



In early Spring the banks and hedges are spangled with 

 the golden stars of the Pilewort or Lesser Celandine, flowers 

 that positively dazzle the eyes by their brilliancy when the 

 sun shines upon them. Later on the Hawthorn bushes fill the 

 air with fragrance, and tempt one to gather boughs laden with 

 bloom. Whatever could have originated the stupid super- 

 stition that to take home hawthorn blossom always brings bad 

 luck ? And how is it that the belief is so deeply rooted in the 

 minds of even well-educated people ? 



At this time of the year in shady, sheltered places may 

 be seen the dark green arrow-shaped leaves and singular 

 flowers of the Cuckoopint or Wild Arum, a strange looking 

 plant known under fifty different names in various parts of 

 England. A pale green spat he or hood protects the delicately 

 tinted club on which the essential parts of the flower are 

 situated ; in autumn, when both flowers and leaves have 

 completely disappeared, their place will be taken by the fruit, 

 in the shape of a bunch of red, coral-like berries. The Early 

 Purple Orchis is another striking species that puts forth its 

 handsome blossoms in April ; and so is the Green-veined 

 Garlic, an excessively rare plant in England, easily recognised 

 by its clusters of white flowers, and the strong onion-like 

 odour of its leaves. 



As summer advances new species appear in rapid 

 succession and almost bewildering variety ; but we can detect 

 family likenesses. The Buttercups, and Thistles, and Spurges, 

 and St. John's worts, all more or less resemble each other in 

 the flowers ; but when you look closely at them, and compare 

 their leaves and manner of growth, you begin to wonder why 

 you had never perceived before that instead of being all the 

 same kind, they are really quite distinct. 



Here on the roadside we meet with a miscellaneous 

 collection of little plants, a mixture of vegetation popularly 

 classed under the scornful designation of " weeds," as if 

 implying that they are beneath notice. One of the commonest 

 of these roadside waifs and strays is the Scarlet Pimpernel, or 

 Poor Man's Weatherglass, so called because it invariably 

 closes its petals on the approach of rain. In one or two places 

 in this island its near relative, the Blue Pimpernel, has been 

 found. It is exactly like the common red one in every respect, 

 except that the flowers are a rich violet blue, and it is always 

 rare. Then there is the Common Cudweed and the Marsh 

 C udweed, both of them ashey grey and without showy flowers ; 

 the Petty Spurge, filled like all the Spurges with a milky 

 juice that blisters the skin of sensitive fingers ; the Dead 



