IN THE LANES
This is the last day that we can spend in looking for wild flowers at
Willow Farm. Perhaps some of you already knew something about flowers
before this visit. If so, you may have been disappointed that we have
not seen some favourite flower of your own. You may think we have
passed over many flowers which deserved to be noticed.
For that matter I think _every_ wild flower deserves to be noticed; but
we certainly should not have time for all. I showed you several plants
growing on the walls and roof, because it was interesting to see that
quite beautiful flowers, such as the Wallflower and the Houseleek, could
grow with very little soil. We looked rather closely at the Clovers and
at the Grasses in the hay-field, because these plants are important to
the farmer; they are part of his crops. Then, too, we noticed several
weeds which do him harm.
To-day I am going to take a kind of holiday. I shall show you three
flowers, not because they have much to do with the farmer, but because
they are great favourites of my own.
None of these are very common at Willow Farm, although I know where to
find each one. We will go first down the little stony lane which leads
from near the foldyard gate to the cottages where the shepherd and the
bailiff live. Here we shall find the Alkanet. It is a perennial, and it
blossoms here year after year. I only know one other place in the
village where it grows. Like some other flowers we have seen, it is not
really a native of England.
It has a very beautiful blue blossom, a little like the blossom of the
Forget-me-not which perhaps you know, but the flower of the Alkanet is
of a deeper, richer blue. Here again, as with so many other flowers we
have seen, the blossom is formed of the five lobes of a corolla. In the
centre of each blue blossom is a small white spot.
The blossoms grow in little clusters on a short stalk, and on this stalk
there is always one pair of small leaves. The leaves on the main stems
of the plant are larger; the lower leaves have stalks, but those on the
upper part of the stem are sessile. The leaves are hairy, and so are the
stems, which often grow two or three feet high.
We saw that the Poppy and the Pimpernel were the only two true _scarlet_
wild flowers of our fields. In the same way there is only one other
English wild flower which has such a _deep blue_ blossom as the Alkanet.
That is the Borage; and the Borage, like the Alkanet, is not really a
native of England. For a fine golden yellow flower I do not know
anything which can beat the Dandelion. If we have not seen _every_ wild
flower which grows at Willow Farm, we have at any rate seen three which
have the deepest and richest colours.
Now for my next favourite. This time we go to the shady lane leading
from Willow Farm to the church; that is the only place near here where
I have found the Lesser Periwinkle. There is also a Larger Periwinkle,
very similar to my favourite here, except in size.
[Illustration: LESSER PERIWINKLE.]
To find the Periwinkle in full flower we should have to come in spring,
but, though it is July now, we shall still find a blossom here and
there, I hope. Even in winter we might do so too.
The Lesser Periwinkle has a blue flower, but the blue is a pale lilac
blue. Here again the petals are really the five spreading lobes of the
corolla. There is something curious about these lobes. They are of a
peculiar irregular shape that is not easy to describe; they are not
exactly pointed, and they are not regular in shape. You could cut the
petal of a Buttercup into two equal parts; it would be almost impossible
to do this with the lobes of the Periwinkle blossom.
The leaves are dark green, glossy and pointed, and they grow in pairs.
Often, however, we find two pairs of leaves growing so closely together
that they seem to grow in fours. The leaves are evergreen; they do not
fade and die in autumn.
Some of the Periwinkle stems are erect and are about six inches high;
others are creeping. It is only the erect stems which bear flowers; the
creeping ones are barren. They do useful work, however, for they form
fresh roots, as we have seen the stalks of some other plants do. In this
way the whole bank beside the lane has become covered with the pretty
plant.
The Periwinkle is a comparatively small plant. The last flower--the
Foxglove--that we shall see at Willow Farm is quite different. It is a
very tall plant. It is generally described as growing from three to five
feet high, but I have seen a stem of eight or nine feet. We shall find
it growing on the hedgebank in Little Orchard, and it also often grows
in woods.
Some plants, as we know, are annuals, others are perennials. The
Foxglove is neither; it is a biennial--that is a two years' plant. If
you sow Foxglove seed you will have no flowers the first year, only a
root and a great bunch of leaves. In the second year tall stems which
bear the flowers will appear. In the autumn after it has flowered the
Foxglove generally dies, though sometimes it may live for another year,
or even two. Foxgloves, of course, will reproduce themselves by seed, as
annuals and perennials do.
[Illustration: FOXGLOVE.]
The Foxglove is something different from anything that we have seen as
yet. The flowers grow on short flower stalks and hang down from the
tall stems, a great many on each stem. Here there are no petals, but
what we see and admire so much is the bell-shaped corolla, purple-red in
colour. This purple bell is spotted with white inside. Bell-shaped is
perhaps not a very good description; the flower is more like a large
thimble or the finger of a glove.
"A glove for a fox--that is the meaning of the name," you perhaps say.
No, it has nothing to do with a fox. Many years ago nearly everyone
believed in Fairies, and the Fairies were often called the Good Folk or
Good People. It is they, and not the fox, who were supposed to use the
purple blossoms as a glove. If you say "Folk's Glove" quickly, you will
see how easily it comes to sound Foxglove. So our last thought among the
flowers is of the Fairies, in whose existence hardly anyone believes
to-day.
End of Project Gutenberg's Wildflowers of the Farm, by Arthur Owens Cooke