92 
NATURE NOTES 
Many districts in England have their own varieties of hedge 
parsleys, which may be looked for in vain in neighbourhoods 
not far removed. Such vagaries of soil preference and choice 
of locality are familiar to all persons who have made a study 
of botany, and they are not always easily accounted for. For 
instance, it is difficult to explain why a minute little plant 
should be found only along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, 
and on the summit of a Scotch mountain, and to satisfactorily 
account for the sudden appearance of flowers in great abundance 
in places where they have never been seen before. Many of 
the hedge parsleys, however, are common almost everywhere, 
and despised and neglected plants as they are, they do much 
toward making our waste grounds and hedgerows pleasant to 
look upon during many months of the year. All the parsleys 
belong to the Umbelliferae, one of the largest natural orders 
of British wild flowers, which includes the yellow-flowered 
fennel, the familiar wild carrot, the spotted hemlock, the sea- 
shore samphire, and many common water plants. Nearly all 
the umbelliferous plants bear white flowers, and where they 
grow freely their wind-blown clusters of blossoms are delightful 
to beheld. From the middle of April until late in autumn, 
and sometimes even until the end of the year, some of them 
are to be found in bloom by the roadside, in the fields and wood- 
lands, or by the river-side. Often the sea cliffs are covered 
with their waving umbels, which rise above the pink-flowered 
rest-harrow and the bluish-lilac blossoms of the sea lavender, 
and among the meadows the rush-fringed dykes and pools 
are frequently hidden by their rank luxuriance. It is such 
familiar wild flowers as these that the casual stroller knows the 
least about, for he hardly ever takes the trouble to identify 
them. He has seen them so many times ; he remembers that 
they grew in exactly the same places when he was a schoolboy ; 
and it seldom strikes him that where he thinks he sees a thousand 
specimens of the same flower, he is perhaps looking upon half 
a score varieties. Yet the study of our wild flowers is one 
of the most fascinating that can be undertaken, and those 
who have once devoted a few days, or even hours, to it are 
seldom disposed to abandon it for other, and perhaps less 
profitable, pursuits. 
William A. Dutt. 
