206 
A BOTANICAL TOUR THROUGH SOUTH WALES, &c. 
the event of slipping down in search of a few of its tantalizing plants." The 
eastern end of the morass appears to have been partially drained since Donovan's 
time, but the great mass of it still precisely answers to his account. It must be 
confessed, however, that at this time partial openings in the sedgy forest, and 
several spreads of water within the dank and lurid herbage, presented scenes of 
transcendent beauty, from the profusion of white Nymphules (NymphcEa alba) 
that, in full flower filling the air with fragrance, almost hid the water from view, 
with their snowy multitude of flowers. One circular pond in particular had a 
fairy-like aspect, hemmed round in solitary loveliness—to be visited only by the 
Gallinule or Wild Duck, or perhaps rippled by the young of the Grebe— 
“ Where in the midst upon her throne of green, 
Sits the large Lily as the water’s queen.”— Crabbe. 
The splendid Ranunculus lingua^ in almost equal profusion with the Nymphule, 
fringed the morass with its bright golden flowers; while, wherever a rising bank 
diversified the monotony of the morassy waste, a dense squadron of JLriophori 
waved their ermine tassels in the vagrant breeze. Most botanists, perhaps, have 
their favourite flower rendered dearer in their estimation from the charm of 
association. —Linn^us hung with rapture over the European Winter-green ( Tri- 
entalis Europcea while Sir J. E. Smith, in English Botany^ fixes upon the 
Water Avens (Geum rivaleJ, gracefully drooping its crimson petals, as having 
a peculiar charm for him ; but surely he tliat has once seen the white water-lily 
(Nymphule) in its native haunts, assuming the appearance of a silver chalice 
floating on the water, and resting on its broad emerald leaves, that occasionally 
rise up fluttering in the gale, can never again recur to the indelible image they 
have left upon his mind without renewed delight. It must be admitted, even in 
these unpoetical utilitarian days, that the flowers memory has entwined 
around our early recollections are among the few unalloyed objects that, with 
talismanic power, are yet enabled to touch and pierce, if but for a moment, the 
iron panoply with which care and contention have invested the human breast. 
And here I shall hardly be out of place (or forgiven, if I am) in alluding to 
that beautiful passage in Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Sonnets^ where he thus 
mentions the ‘‘ vernal posy” his mother had placed at his breast, on his first going 
to be catechised with his young compeers before their rural pastor.— 
“ How flutter’d then thy anxious heart for me, 
Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand 
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie: 
Sweet flowers ! at whose inaudible command 
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear : 
O lost too early for the frequent tear, 
And ill requited by this heart-felt sigh.” 
