The Call of the Wildflower Part 4

One may still find there the narrow-leaved everlasting pea, "hanging in festoons on thickets and copses," but other equally valued plants have disappeared or are disappearing. The marsh h.e.l.leborine was once plentiful, it seems, in a swampy situation near Merstham; but when, by dint of careful trespa.s.sing and circ.u.mnavigation of barbed wire, I reached a place which corresponded exactly with that indicated in the _Flora_, not a single flower was to be seen. Probably some conscientious gardener had "transplanted" them.

It is impossible to doubt that this process will be continued, and that every year more wild land will be broken up in the building of villas and in the making of gardens, with the inevitable shrubberies, gravel walks, flower-borders, and lawn-tennis courts. The trim parterre with its "detested calceolarias," as a great nature-lover has described them, will more and more be subst.i.tuted for the rough banks that are the favourite haunts of marjoram and rock-rose. How can the owners of such a fairyland have the heart to sell it for such a purpose? In Omar's words:

I often wonder what the vintners buy One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

X

A SANDY COMMON

The common, overgrown with fern, . . .

Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs And fungus fruits of earth, regales the sense With luxury of unexpected sweets.

COWPER.

STRETCHED between the North Downs and the weald, through the west part of Kent and the length of Surrey, runs the parallel range of greensand, which in a few places, as at Toys Hill and Leith Hill, equals or overtops its rival, but is elsewhere content to keep a lower level, as a region of high open commons and heaths. The light soil of this district shows a flora as different from that of the chalk hills on its north as of the wealden clays on its south; so that a botanist has here the choice of three kingdoms to explore.

In natural beauty, these hills can hardly compare with the Downs. "For my part," wrote Gilbert White, "I think there is something peculiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk hills, in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless."[12] The same opinion was held by William Morris, who once declined to visit a friend of his (from whom I had the story) because he was living on just such a sandy common in west Surrey, where the formless and lumpish outline of the land was a pain to the artistic eye.

For hygienic reasons, however, a sandy soil is reputed best to dwell upon; and I have heard a tale--told as a warning to those who are over-fastidious in their choice of a site--of a pious old gentleman who, being determined to settle only where he could be a.s.sured of two conditions, "a sandy soil and the pure gospel," finally died without either in a Bloomsbury hotel.

[Footnote 12: _Natural History of Selborne_, ch. lvi.]

The gorse and broom in spring, and in autumn the heather, are the marked features of the sandy Common: the foxglove, too, which has a strong distaste for lime, here often thrives in vast abundance, and makes a great splash of purple at the edge of the woods. But even apart from these more conspicuous plants, the "barren heath," as it is sometimes called, is well able to hold its own in a flower-lover's affection; though the absence of the finer orchids, and of some other flowers that pertain to the chalk, makes it perhaps less exciting as a field of adventure. In Crabbe's words:

And then how fine the herbage! Men may say A heath is barren: nothing is so gay.

From May to September the Common is sprinkled with a bright succession of flowers--the slender _moenchia_, akin to the campions and chickweeds, dove's-foot, crane's-bill; tormentil; heath bedstraw; speedwells of several species; autumnal harebell, and golden rod--each in turn playing its part. Among the aristocracy of this small people are the bird's-foot, an elfin creature, with tiny pinnate leaves and creamy crimson-veined blossoms; the modest milkwort, itself far from a rarity, yet so lovely that it shames us in our desire for the rare; and the trailing St. John's-wort, which we hail as the beauty of the family, until presently, meeting with its "upright" sister of the smooth heart-shaped leaves and the golden red-stained buds, we are forced to own that to her the name of _hyperic.u.m pulcrum_ most rightly belongs.

But the chief prize of the sandy heath is the Deptford pink, a rare annual of uncertain appearance, which bears the unmistakable stamp of n.o.bility: it is a red-letter day for the flower-lover when he finds a small colony of these comely plants on some dry gra.s.sy margin. It was on a bank in Westerham Park that I first met with them; and there they reappeared, though in lessening numbers, in the two succeeding seasons.

There was also a solitary flower, growing unpicked, strange to say, close beside one of the most frequented tracks that skirt the neighbouring Common.

In the woods of beech and fir with which the hill is fringed there are more fungi than flowers; and here too the "call of the wild" is felt, though to a feast of a less ethereal order. Fungus hunting is one of the best of sports, and a joy unknown to those who imagine that the orthodox "mushroom" of the market is the only wholesome species; and it is worthy of note that, whereas the true meadow mushroom is procurable during only a few weeks of the year, the fungus-eater can pursue his quarry during six or seven months, so great is the variety at his disposal. Among the delicacies that these woods produce are the red-fleshed mushroom, a brown-topped warty plant which becomes rufous when bruised; the gold-coloured chantarelle, often found growing in profusion along bushy paths and dingles; the big edible boletus, ignored in this country, but well appreciated on the Continent; and best of all, deserving indeed of its Latin name, the _agaricus deliciosus_, or orange-milk agaric, so called because its flesh, when broken, exudes an orange-coloured juice.

It is easy to identify these and many other species with the help of a handbook, and it therefore seems strange that Englishmen, as compared with other races, should be prejudiced against the use of this valuable form of food. As for the country-folk who live within easy reach of such dainties, yet would rather starve than eat a "toadstool," what can one say of them?

_O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!_[13]

[Footnote 13: Thrice blest, if they but knew what joys are theirs!]

From the south side of these fir-woods one formerly emerged, almost at a step, on to the escarpment that overlooks the weald, and at one of the finest viewpoints in Kent or Surrey; but the trees were felled during the war by Portuguese woodmen imported for that lamentable purpose. The spot is remembered by me for another reason; for there, in the years before the madness of Europe, used to sit almost daily a very aged man, whose home was on the hillside close by, and who was brought out, by his own wish, that he might spend his declining days not in moping by a kitchen fire, but in gazing across the wide expanse of weald, where all the landmarks were familiar to him, and of which he seemed never to weary. No more truly devout old age could have been desired; for there was no mistaking his genuine love for what Richard Jefferies called "the pageant of summer," the open-air panorama of the seasons, as observed from that heathery watch-tower. The only cloud on his horizon, so to speak, was the flock of aeroplanes which even then were beginning to mar the sky's calmness: of these he would sagely remark that "if man had been intended to fly, the Almighty would have given him wings." Had the old philosopher known to what h.e.l.lish uses those engines were presently to be put, he might have wondered still more at such thwarting of the divine intent.

Of sandpits there are several on the Common, and their disused borders are favourite haunts for wildflowers. The "least" cudweed, a slender wisp of a plant, is native there; the small-flowered crane's-bill, which is liable to be confounded with the dove's-foot; also one or two curious aliens, such as the Canadian fleabane, and the Norwegian _potentilla_, which resembles the common cinquefoil but has smaller flowers.

But what most allured me to the spot was the sheep's scabious, or, as it is more prettily named in the Latin, _Jasione montana_, a delightful little plant, baffling alike in name, form, and colour. It is called a scabious, yet is not one. It is cla.s.sed as a campanula, and seen through a lens is found to be not one but many campanulas, a number of tiny bells united in a single head. Then its hue--was there ever tint more elusive, more indefinable, than that of its many petals? Is it grey, or blue, or lavender, or lilac, or what? We only know that the flower is very beautiful as it blooms on sandy bank or roadside wall.

At the side of a small plantation that borders the heath there thrives the alien small-flowered balsam, which, like some of its handsomer kinsfolk, seems to be quickly extending its range. Near the same spot I noticed several years ago, on a winter day, a patch of large soft pale-green leaves, which at a hasty glance I took to be those of the scented colt's-foot; but when I pa.s.sed that way in the following spring I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow composite flowers, had risen from the ma.s.s of foliage. It proved to be the leopard's-bane, probably an "escape" from some neighbouring garden, but already well established and thriving like any native.

But the Common does not consist wholly of dry ground; in one place, near the centre of the golf-course, there is a marshy depression, and in it a small pond where the water is a foot or two deep in winter, but in a hot summer almost disappears. Here a double discovery awaits the inquirer.

The muddy pool is full of one of the rarer mints--pennyroyal--and with it grows the curious _helosciadium inundatum_, or "least marsh-wort," a small umbelliferous plant which has more the habit and appearance of a water crowfoot, its lower leaves being cut in fine hair-like segments.

Nor do the fields and lanes that adjoin the heath lack their distinctive charm. The orpine, or "live-long," a handsome purple stonecrop, is not uncommon by the hedgeside; and the lovely _geranium striatum_, or striped crane's-bill, an occasional straggler from gardens, has made for itself a home; a hardy little adventurer it is, and one hopes it may yet win a place among British flowers, as many a less desirable immigrant has done. Poppies and corn-marigolds are a wonder of red and gold in the cultivated fields, the poppies as usual looking their best (if agriculturists will pardon the remark) when they have a crop of wheat for a background. The queer little knawel springs up among spurrey and parsley-piert; and in one locality is the lesser snapdragon, which always commands attention, partly for its uncommonness, and partly as a scion of the romantic race of _Antirrhinum_, which has a fascination not for children only, but for all lovers of the quaint.

I have mentioned the golf-course. To many a Common the golfers are becoming what the builders are to the Downs--invaders who, by the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of gra.s.s and cutting down of bushes, are turning the natural into the artificial, and appropriating for the use of the few the possession of the many. To everyone his recreation ground; but are not the golf clubs getting rather more than their portion?

XI

QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS

Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes.

MILTON.

I SPOKE just now of a love of the quaint. Quaintness, though it may exist apart from beauty, is often a.s.sociated with it, and, unlike grotesqueness, has a pleasurable interest for the spectator. In flowers it is usually suggested by some abnormality of shape, as in the snapdragon; less frequently, as in the fritillary, by a singular effect of colouring. Perhaps it is to the orchis group that one would most confidently apply the word; for they arrest attention not so much by their beauty as by their strangeness: one of them, indeed, the dwarf orchis, is undeniably beautiful, while another, the bird's-nest, is as ugly as a broom-rape; the others, if one tried to find a comprehensive epithet, might fairly be described as quaint.

This quality in the orchids is not due solely to the odd likeness which some of them present to certain insects; for, as far as British species are concerned, the similarity, with a few exceptions, is somewhat fanciful. If it be granted that the fly, the bee, and the spider orchis are justly named--though even in these the resemblance is not always recognized when pointed out--it is no less true that one looks in vain for the semblance of a "b.u.t.terfly," or of a "frog," in the plants that are so ent.i.tled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the "man" in _aceras anthropophora_, or the "egg" in the white h.e.l.leborine. But there is a charming quaintness in nearly all members of the family, owing largely to the peculiar structure of the lower lip of the corolla or the unusual length of the spur.

The very name of the snapdragon is a proof of its hold upon the imagination: what mediaeval romance and unfailing charm for children--and for adults--is conveyed in the word! The plant is at its best when clad in royal hue of purple; the white robe also has its glory; but the intermediate forms, striped and mottled, that are so fancied in gardens, are degenerates from a n.o.ble type. Seen on the walls of some ancient ruin, the snapdragon is a wonder and a delight; it is to be regretted that its place is now so often usurped by the red valerian, in comparison a mere upstart and pretender. The lesser snapdragon or calf's-snout, with the toadflaxes and fluellens, shares in the characteristic quaintness of its tribe.

I will next instance the "perfoliates," plants not confined to any one order, but alike in having a stem which pa.s.ses midway through the leaf or pair of leaves, a most engaging curiosity of structure. It is by this peculiarity that the yellow-wort, a gentian with glaucous foliage and blossoms like "patines of bright gold," mainly wins its popularity.

But the quaintest of perfoliates is the hare's-ear, or "thorow-wax," as it used to be called, of which, as Gerarde wrote, "every branch grows thorow every leaf, making them like hollow cups or saucers." The thorow-wax owes its attractiveness to these singular glaucous leaves, which might be compared with an artist's palette; in some measure, also, to the sharp-pointed bracts by which the minute yellow flowers are enfolded--features that lend it a distinction which many much more beautiful plants do not possess.

From no catalogue of quaint plants could the b.u.t.terwort be omitted.

"Mountain-sanicle" was its old name; and all climbers are acquainted with it, as it studs the wet rocks on the lower hillsides with pale green or yellowish leaves like starfish on a seash.o.r.e. Its flowering-season is short, but full of interest, for lo! from its centre there rise in June one or two long and dainty stems, each bearing at its extremity a drooping purple flower that might at first glance be taken for a violet--a violet springing from a starfish!

It is a long step from these conspicuous examples of the quaint to the small and modest moschatel, a hedge-flower which is likely to go un.o.bserved unless it be made a special object of inquiry. _Adoxa_, "the unknown to fame," is its Greek t.i.tle; but if it has little claim to beauty in the ordinary sense, there is no slight charm in its delicate configuration, and in the whimsical arrangement of its five slender flower-heads--a terminal one, facing upwards, supported by four lateral ones, with a resemblance to the faces of a clock; whence its not inappropriate nickname, "the clock-tower." A fairy-like little belfry it is, whose chimes must be listened for, if at all, in the early spring, for it hastens to get its flowering finished before it is overgrown by the rank herbage of the roadside.

There are many other flowers that might claim a place in this chapter, such as the sundews and the bladderworts; the mimulus and ground pine; the samphire and sea-rocket; the mullein and the teazle; and not least, the herb Paris, with that large quadruple "love-knot" into which its leaves are fashioned. But it must suffice to speak of one more.

The fritillary, which shall close the list, is quaint to the point of being bizarre: its various names bear witness to the freakishness of its apparel--"guinea-flower," "turkey-hen," "chequered lily,"

"snake's-head," and so forth. It was aptly described by Gerarde as "chequered most strangely. . . . Surpa.s.sing the curiousest painting that art can set down"; and in addition to this gorgeous colouring, the bell-like shape and heavy poise of its flower-heads contribute to the striking effect. From Gerarde to W. H. Hudson, who has portrayed it very beautifully in his _Book of a Naturalist_, the fritillary has been fortunate in its chroniclers; in its name, which it shares with a handsome family of b.u.t.terflies, it can hardly be said to have been fortunate. For apart from the consideration that it is no great honour to a fine insect or flower to be likened to that instrument of human folly, a dicebox (_fritillus_), there is the practical difficulty of p.r.o.nouncing the word as the dictionaries tell us it must be p.r.o.nounced, with the accent on the first syllable; and not the dictionaries only, but the poets, as in Arnold's oft-quoted but very cacophonous line:

I know what white, what purple fritillaries. . . .

Why must so quaintly charming a flower be so barbarously named that one's jaw is well-nigh cracked in articulating it?

XII

HERTFORDSHIRE CORNFIELDS

A gaily chequered, heart-expanding view, Far as the circling eye can shoot around, Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.