WEEDS OF THE GARDEN. 



169 



grassy places in the South of France, and whose giant spathe is like a 

 cornucopia of tissue paper. Some that I once brought home and 

 planted in the garden Apple-border waned away entirely after a few years, 

 while plants of our smaller English species at about the same time 

 became oftener seen. Arums do not get on very well either wild or in 

 the garden. Never have I beheld in the garden a single one of their 

 scarlet fruit-spikes, while in the lanes and hedge-banks rarely does a 

 single spathe escape the busy hands of passing school-children. 



An interesting little thing was, for I think it is now no more, a 

 minute pale pink Geranium which used to come in dry hot summers on 

 the hard gravel-walks. The height of it would be about half an inch, and 

 the utmost spread of its foliage might almost cover a crown-piece. This 

 mite has, I fear, yielded at last to the roller. 



Most lovely and most native among all the natural zueccls of my garden 

 are the wild White Violets. Against these there is no law. In February 

 and March the whole garden is white with them in every part, and in the 

 grass at the north-east end and under the Apple-trees you would almost 

 think there had been a hail storm, so white and thick the White Violets 

 lie. But it is only Violets and Wood Strawberries that may spread and 

 multiply at will like this. Without question the Violets are native to the 

 place. Wood Strawberries were brought home for remembrance, from the 

 old grey walls of a little church in Hampshire, about a quarter of a century 

 ago. They seed now everywhere and are welcome ; and they forget not 

 the old church walls whence came their parent plant, and will climb 

 joyfully all among the Linaria Cymballaria or Mother of Thousands, or 

 Wandering Sailor, to the top of our ivied buttresses, six feet high and 

 more. A little Barren Strawberry, has been my pet for years. For many 

 years it has lived close under the house-wall, creeping up supported by 

 Wild Ivy, looking very pretty, with an embroidery of humble little blossoms. 

 And only lately have I learnt that it is no Strawberry at all, but Potentilla 

 Fragariastrum. 



And so we come to wild things who have made the garden their home, 

 and yet who do not seem to have naturally sprung there ; they may have 

 been brought by birds, or have come in a hundred ways. 



Once, all over the kitchen garden, the Thorn Apple (Datura Stramonium) 

 ran wild. It used to be too plentiful, though now quite lost. I remember 

 how beautiful it was, with its large pale purple blossom, giving place in 

 season to the Prickly Fruit, in its turn opening to scatter abroad its little 

 black seeds. Gradually, as years went on and care took the place of long- 

 neglect, it was weeded away off the face of the land, and now — I am sorry ! 

 They say Datura was used in the incantations and unlawful practices of 

 witches ; also, no doubt in some places, Thorn Apple is — as it is also said 

 to be — a remnant of old ecclesiastical gardening, although introduced 

 from Constantinople, Spain, or Italy, not earlier, I believe, than 1597. 



Milk Thistle (Carduus Marianus) is another departed weed from our 

 garden where it formerly used to nourish. This also, with its white 

 streaked leaves, — made lovelier by a holy meaning that tradition gave, — 

 was once a favourite in convent gardens. Wherever it now is found — when 

 not recently introduced — we may be sure its origin in that place is in 

 some way ecclesiastical. Our Milk Thistle has surely gone the way of 



