"WEEDS OF THE GARDEN. 



167 



have leave to live ? " His reply was curt and decisive : " There's NO 

 place." 



The prettiest weed of the garden, after all — and the sweetest, if you 

 bruise the leaf of it — is the common Crane's-bill (Geranium liobcrtianum). 

 I find in an old family herbal the remark that " very few know it by the 

 name of Crane's-bill, but every one knows a Geranium." That was 

 printed in the days when every Pelargonium was a Geranium ! Now and 

 then our Crane's-bill will make some shady garden-corner rosy, or it 

 courts full sunshine hanging from the grey limestone of the rockery. 

 The delicate markings of the small flowers seem as it were " put in " with 

 a touch ; and so elusive is the colour, one knows not if to call it pink or 

 rose-lilac. No highly cultivated florist's flower could be more alluring in 

 its beauty. How many such indeed are cultivated up to so huge a 

 doubleness and machine-made regularity that a point is reached where 

 all true distinction and character are lost ! The flower of many a perse- 

 cuted wild garden weed, in comparison, seems, as one might say, " hand- 

 made" ; bears still in the lovely painting and shaping of its corolla the 

 mark of the hand of God. 



Corydalis lutea flourishes abundantly on our old brick walls, clinging 

 by preference to the western aspect. Few things of the kind please more 

 than its sea-green Fern-like foliage, so delicately made yet richly full, as 

 to give the idea of masses of green sea-foam. The little yellow flower- 

 spike is muffled up to the chin in its foamy leaves. Such at least is the 

 fashion of their growth with us. 



Mixed with lutea is a bunch or two of the white variety. This is not 

 native to the garden ; it came from a nurseryman's packet of seed. 



Ground Ivy (Nepcta Glcchoma) is another chief favourite. The name 

 Ground Ivy is often misleading, for we find visitors to the garden often 

 call the Common Ivy that is kept low under our large trees " Ground 

 Ivy." Alehoof is also its ungainly popular name, because formerly used 

 in the refining of ale. 



Ground Ivy has long been understood to have the freedom of one 

 special spot in the garden. It is allowed to enring our ancient Sumach 

 (Bhus Cotinus) with a broad band of palest sapphire blue. Before August 

 has clothed the tree in beauty with its own glowing inflorescence, many things 

 besides Ground Ivy are there to dress it or to creep around it. There 

 are Wild Primroses in spring, and self-sown Berberis (Mahonia) decorates 

 the bare stem with little yellow balls. Nightshade (Solanum Dulcamara), 

 too, winding cautiously about the time-worn trunk and crooked branches, 

 pushing out purple tassels all the way as it climbs, arrives at last, and 

 looks out from the topmost leaves in a shower of purple tipped with gold. 

 Our Nightshade is not, 1 believe, the deadly Dwale ; yet since it has 

 descended now to the lawn from the top of a high wall, where it had 

 flourished formerly for years, there seem to be certain fears about the 

 dangers of its tempting berries. It would be a disappointment if yellow 

 Ladies' -bedstraw (Galium verum) came not in its season, year by year, 

 among the stones around our sundial. The peculiar perfume of it 

 refreshes greatly, more especially if mixed with Honeysuckle. It is only 

 in Scotland, I believe, where Wild Honeysuckle blooms quite late within 

 woodland shades, while Yellow Galium — with fiowerstalks rising a foot or 



