264 
is said to have held this tree in so great veneration that he seldom passed it with¬ 
out taking off his hat and paying reverence to it.” The old Dutch doctor must 
surely have been a determined toper of Elder wine ! what else he could see in 
the Elder to induce him to doff his cocked hat to it seems impossible to conceive. 
Phillips omits to state his authority for this story, which, if true, was perhaps con¬ 
nected with some superstition, from which the greatest men have been not 
always exempt. 
At Llanellen, four miles from Abergavenny, we crossed the Usk, and in a 
hedge-row here % Rosa villosa appeared with its beautiful deep pink blossoms. 
Grammnitis ceterach shewed itself for the first time in this quarter in the 
interstices of a wall. 
Further on, a gigantic old Ash tree, enveloped with Ivy, formed an interest¬ 
ing spectacle. Passed Mamhilade Church, whose cemetery is wrapt in sombre 
gloom, by eleven large Yew trees, one of which, near the building, is of very large 
dimensions. A whimsical idea has been taken up by St. Pierre, and rather 
strangely propagated by Dr. Johnston in his interesting Flora of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed , that Ivy will not grow upon other evergreens.* The futility of such an 
hypothesis was here very evident, for many of these Yews were densely clothed 
with Ivy, as well as numerous Firs in the same vicinity. It must be admitted 
that a gloomier object than a Yew or Fir cloaked in still darker verdure than its 
own shadowy robe is hardly conceivable ; and I was much struck some years ago 
with one of this description that I met with canopying, in sombre twilight, a dingle 
near the Wrekin, where a silent streamlet wept through the lurid shade. In 
Lower Sapey churchyard, Worcestershire, there is also a singular Yew which 
the Ivy upon it has completely overpowered, surmounted the very topmost 
branches, and formed a large ivied canopy upon the summit of the tree. I have 
noticed Portugal Laurels, also, and various species of Pinus, robed in Ivy in 
Witley Park, Worcestershire, and in numerous other places. These Ivy-enve¬ 
loped evergreens are not disregarded by the birds, who find them very convenient 
places for nidification; and they are especial favourites with the Stock Dove, 
where he coos away unseen and undisturbed. 
At Llannihangel, two miles from Pontypool, I was much pleased to notice the 
custom of planting the graves of the rural inhabitants with flowers—an old 
observance, still piously kept up at present in South Wales. It is not, perhaps, 
generally known that plants of pungent scent are chosen for this purpose, in pre¬ 
ference to more specious and more elegant flowers. Thus, Rosemary, Balm, 
Old-man, and Tansy are of most frequent occurrence ; the latter of which, and 
some others, are alluded to by Mason, in his fine elegy commemorative of the 
practice : 
Johnston’s Flora of Berwick-upon-Tweed , vol. i., p. 209, under Pinus sylvestris. 
