CX.— THE GRASS OF PARNASSUS. 
Parnassia pa/ustris Linne. 
I T has always been a puzzle to us to account for the fact that Wordsworth passing 
most of his life in the Take District, where the lovely Grass of Parnassus 
is abundant, and undoubtedly taking an active interest in the plants of his 
neighbourliood, should never have sung the praises of this choice beauty among 
Nature’s treasures. Every time we have seen it we have been impressed by its 
charm. On the pale green of a Sphagnum bog near Windermere, where the oozy 
black mud was gay with the gold of the Lesser Spearwort {Ranunculus Flammula 
Idnne), we first saw its ivory petals and glossy green beside a few plants of pale pink 
fleath {Erica Tetralix Linn^) and the flaming fruit-spikes of Bog Asphodel. We 
have seen its pallid stars dotting miles of marshland in Northern Russia and Prussia; 
and we have found it with Epipactis longifolia Allioni, the Lesser Skull-cap {Scutellaria 
minor Hudson), and Sundew, in a small bog beside a ruined Priory, in Norfolk. 
We recall no more beautiful surroundings for it, however, than those of the Naunton 
Seven Springs among the Cotteswolds. Following up the clear babbling stream of 
the Windrush from the picturesque village of Bourton-on-the-Water, where many 
white ducks and geese waddle over the common, and many little stone foot-bridges 
cross the stream, each leading to a separate cottage, a green marshy meadow is 
reached, circled round on three sides by a low hill of dry rubbly oolite. On its 
slopes in spring are the silky violet cups of the Pasque-flower {Anemone Pulsatilla 
Linn6), the white Meadow Saxifrage, and the rare little Perfoliate Penny Cress 
{Thlaspi perfoliatum Linne) ; but in autumn the Grass of Parnassus in the marsh has 
no rival. Seven copious springs gush out of the hill-side into overflowing bubbling 
pools to feed the Windrush, bordered with Forget-me-nots, hard by ; and in soft 
green islands between these pools, reddened here and there with rosettes of Sundew, 
rise the stiff green stalks of Parnassia. Surely the snow-crowned Parnassus itself 
and the Castalian spring, the favourite haunt of Apollo and the Muses, was not a 
fairer scene ! 
The whole plant is glabrous and both leaves and flower-stalks are a glossy 
green. The ovate, heart-shaped outline of the former and their thick texture 
naturally suggested the comparison with Anemone Hepatica Linne, which made 
Cordus name it Hepatica alba^ a name which Gerard rendered literally as White 
Liverwort. The short, thick, premorse rhizome bears tufts of unbranched roots and 
the withered remains of former leaves : the radical leaves have petioles two or three 
inches long ; but in addition to them there is only a single sessile cauline leaf on each 
flower-stalk, less than half way up it. The peduncle is angular and is twisted by 
circumnutation, though standing singularly erect and sometimes reaching nearly a 
foot in height. With the exception of the gynaeceum, the symmetry of the solitary 
terminal flowers is pentamerous : the five ovate green sepals, which are spreading in 
