172 THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
“ And leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
Ontsweeten’d not thy breath.” 
Thus, again, Spenser, in the “Fairy Queen,” describes a 
bower : 
“ And over him, art striving to compare 
With nature, did an arbour green disspred, 
Framed of wanton ivy, flow’ring fair. 
Through which the fragrant eglantine did spread 
Flis prickly arms, entraibd with roses red. 
Which dainty odours round about them threw, 
And all within with flowers was garnished, 
That when mild Zephyrus amongst them blew, 
Did breathe out bounteous smells, and painted colours 
shew.” 
Spenser was very careful to preserve the old names of 
flowers; and he, as well as Shakespeare, calls the honey- 
suckle — our woodbine— by the name of caprifole. It is 
still called by botanists caprifolium. 
Of all the flo\vers wdth which summer with a lavish hand 
graces our pastoral scenery, filling the air with fragrance 
and covering the earth with beauty, none are more gene- 
rally attractive than the wdld climbing plants of the hedges. 
They are most numerous tow^ards the latter part of summer 
or the beginning of autumn. By interw^eaving their slender 
boughs, covered wnth foliage and flowers, or with berries 
no less beautiful, or, as in the wild clematis, crowned whth 
their light and feathery seeds, they hang about the trees 
and bushes, and contribute very materially to that aspect 
of richness and beauty which the landscape presents at this 
part of the year. As the stems of these plants are so 
slender and yielding that they would sink under the weight 
of their flowery clusters or their numerous leaves, or be 
shattered to pieces by the winds, if they did not find sup- 
port from other plants, w^e see them hanging by their 
tendrils, or bending their stems into the most graceful 
twinings, and clothing the trunks of aged trees, “ those 
green-robed senators of mighty w^oods, tall oaks,” with 
an abundant verdure, the dark glossy green of which con- 
trasts with their grey lichen-covered trunks, or with the 
