Part 5

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 assured 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 _hypericum 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 nobility: it is a red-letter day for the flower-lover when he finds a small colony of these comely plants on some dry grassy 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 hellish 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 classed 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 passed that way in the following spring I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow composite flowers, had risen from the mass 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 trimming of grass 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 associated 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 "butterfly," or of a "frog," in the plants that are so entitled, and it takes some ingenuity to discover the "man" in _aceras anthropophora_, or the "egg" in the white helleborine. 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 noble 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 passes 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 butterwort 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 seashore. 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 unobserved unless it be made a special object of inquiry. _Adoxa_, "the unknown to fame," is its Greek title; 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. . . . Surpassing 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 butterflies, 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 pronouncing the word as the dictionaries tell us it must be pronounced, 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.

THOMSON.

THAT part of Hertfordshire where the Chiltern Hills, after curving proudly round from Tring to Dunstable, and almost rivalling the South Downs in shapeliness, die away at their north-east extremity, over Hitchin, to a bare expanse of ploughland, has the aspect of a broad plain swept by all winds of heaven, but is found, when explored, to be by no means devoid of charm. There, by a paradox, the very extent of the great hedgeless cornfields, reclaimed from the wild, gives the landscape a sort of wildness; it is in fact the district whence the Royston crow got its name, that hooded outlaw to whose survival a wide tract of open country was indispensable; and there is a pleasure in wandering over it which is unguessed by the traveller who rushes through in an express to Cambridge, and marvels at the tameness of the land.

The wildflowers of cultivated fields are as distinctive as those of heath or hillside. It would be difficult to name any two more beautiful "weeds" than the succory and the corn "blue-bottle"--the light blue and the dark blue; both have deservedly won their "blues"--and when to these is added the corn-cockle (_lychnis githago_), the rich veined purple of its petals set off by the long pointed green sepals and leaves, what handsomer trio could be wished? Unhappily these flowers have become much scarcer than they used to be; but in the Hertfordshire fields they are still frequently to be admired.

The intensive culture of which we nowadays hear so much has this drawback for the botanist, that it is robbing him of some plants which he is very loth to lose. The most striking of these, perhaps, is that quaint "perfoliate" of which I have already spoken, the thorow-wax or hare's-ear, which in Gerarde's time was so plentiful in the wheatland as to be what he calls its "infirmitie": now it is decidedly rare. I have never been so fortunate (except in dreams) as to see it _in situ_; but I have for several years grown it from the seed of a specimen gathered by a friend in the cornfields near Baldock, and have always been impressed by its elegance. It is a delicate and fastidious plant, thriving only, as I have noticed, when the conditions are quite favourable: this may account for its steady diminution in many counties, while coarser and hardier weeds are legion.

A more abiding "infirmitie" of some Hertfordshire cornfields is the crow-garlic, a wild onion whose pink umbels often surmount the crop in hundreds. Wishing to learn their local name, I once asked a farm-hand at Letchworth what he called the flowers. After gazing at them sternly, he said to me: "They're _not_ flowers. They're a disease." I suggested that whatever their demerits might be from the point of view of an agriculturist, they must, strictly speaking, be regarded as flowers: this he grudgingly conceded; but as if regretting to have made so large an admission, he called after me, as I left him: "They're a disease." His pertinacity on this point reminded me of the reaffirmations of Old Kaspar, in Southey's poem, "After Blenheim":

"Nay, nay" ... quoth he, "It was a famous victory."

The crow-garlic, as it happens, is rather a pretty plant; and the opprobrious name "disease" might be much more suitably assigned to the tall broom-rape, an unwholesome-looking parasite which lives rapaciously at the expense of the great knapweed, and is occasionally met with in the district of which I am speaking.

An extremely local umbellifer, said to have been formerly so abundant about Baldock that pigs were turned out to fatten on its roots, is the bulbous caraway, which looks like a larger edition of the common earth-nut. None of the country-folk whom I questioned seemed to have any knowledge of its uses; from which it would appear that its virtues, like those of many once famous herbs, have been forgotten in these sceptical modern times. It is well, perhaps, that _carum bulbocastanum_ should be saved from the pigs; for in that unlovely region its white umbels serve to lighten up the monotony of the waysides.

An unexpected discovery is always welcome. In a waste field, about a mile from Royston, I once found a tall branching plant with an abundance of yellow cruciferous flowers, which I should not have recognized but for the fact that a year or two previously my friend Edward Carpenter had sent me a specimen from Corsica. It was the woad, famous as the source of the blue dye with which the ancient Britons stained themselves. A mere "casual" in Hertfordshire, it is said to be established in a few chalk-quarries near Guildford and elsewhere.

Thus far I have spoken of none but field flowers; but the district does not consist wholly of cultivated land, for even in that wilderness of tillage there are oases which have never felt the plough, and where the flora is of a different order. Therfield Heath, near Royston, is one of them, a grassy slope where the handsome purple milk-vetch is plentiful, and one may find, though in less abundance, the sprightly field fleawort, which seems more familiar as an ornament of the high chalk Downs.

Nor are water springs wanting in the bare ploughlands. The little river Ivel, which leaps suddenly to light near Baldock, and thence races northward to join the Bedfordshire Ouse, is a clear trout-stream by whose banks it is pleasant (whatever the trespass notices may threaten) to wander, and to watch the quick-glancing fish. At the hamlet of Radwell, in a moist copse, there is a patch of the rare monk's-hood, a poisonous flower of which later mention will be made. A joint tributary of the Ouse, and not less inviting, is the oddly named Hiz, which has its source on Oughton Common, a boggy flat near Hitchin, where both the butterwort and the grass of Parnassus are recorded as having grown and may perchance be growing still: as for the marsh orchis, one cannot cross the Common without seeing it.

Then at Ickleford, a village on the banks of the Hiz, there is a pond which has been "occupied" (to use a military term) by the water-soldier, a stout aquatic which takes its name from the rigid swordlike leaves enclosing the three-petaled flowers. Peculiar to the eastern counties, this water-soldier is said to have been introduced at Ickleford over half a century ago; and there it now makes a fine array, having thriven wonderfully in spite of the worn-out pots and pans, and other refuse, for which, in Hertfordshire as elsewhere, the nearest pool or stream is thought a fit receptacle.