and water have done their best--now, just after the longest day.
Nature says, "You behold the utmost I can do." The red rose, with
the intense colour of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender
petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be overlooked, modest yet
queenly, on the edges of shady copses and meadows.... And the
water-lily floats on the smooth surface of slow waters, amid
rounded shields of leaves, bucklers, red beneath, which simulate a
green field, perfuming the air. The highest, intensest colour
belongs to the land; the purest, perchance, to the water.
It was not Thoreau's practice to pluck many flowers; he preferred, as a
rule, to leave them where they were; but he speaks of the fitness of
having "in a vase of water on your table the wildflowers of the season
which are just blossoming": thus in mid-June he brings home some
rosebuds ready to expand, "and the next morning they open and fill my
chamber with fragrance." At another time the grateful thought of the
calamint's scent suffices him: "I need not smell it; it is a balm to my
mind to remember its fragrance."
It was characteristic of Thoreau that he loved to renew his outdoor
pleasures in remembrance, by pondering over the beautiful things he had
witnessed, whether through sight or sound or scent. His mountain
excursions were not fully apprehended by him, until he had afterwards
meditated on them. "It is after we get home," he says, "that we really
go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the
mountain do?" So it was with his flowers: even in the long winter
evenings they were still his companions and friends.
I have remembered, when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
* * * * *
How, in the shimmering noon of summer past,
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the johnswort grew.
On a January date we find him writing in his _Journal_: "Perhaps what
most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we
leap by the side of the open brooks! What life, what society! The cold
is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core." Thus, by memory,
his winters were turned into summers, and his flower-seasons were
continuous.
XIX
FELONS AND OUTLAWS
The poisoning henbane, and the mandrake dread.
DRAYTON.
THAT there are felonious as well as philanthropic flowers, plants that
are actively malignant in their relation to mankind, has always been a
popular belief. The upas-tree, for example, has given rise to many
gruesome stories; and the mandrake, fabled to shriek when torn from the
ground, has played a frequent part in poetry and legend; not to mention
the host of noxious weeds, the "plants at whose names the verse feels
loath," as Shelley has it:
And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,
And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank.
The felons, however, of whom I would now speak are not the plants that
seem merely foul and repulsive, such as the docks and nettles, the
broom-rapes, toothworts, and similar ill-looking parasites, but rather
the bold bad outlaws and highwaymen, the "gentlemen of the road," who,
however deleterious to human welfare, have a sinister beauty and
distinction of their own, and are thus able to fascinate us. Prominent
among these is the clan of the nightshades, to which the mandrake itself
belongs, and which has several well-known representatives among British
flowers; above all, the deadly nightshade, or dwale, as it is better
named, to distinguish it from smaller relatives that are wrongly
described as "the deadly." So poisonous is the dwale that Gerarde three
centuries ago exhorted his readers to "banish these pernicious plants
out of your gardens, and all places near to your houses, where children
do resort;" and modern writers tell us that the plant is "fortunately"
of rare occurrence. But threatened plants, like threatened men, live
long; and the dwale, though very local, may still be found in some
abundance: there are woods where it grows even in profusion, and, _pace_
Gerarde, rejoices the heart of the flower-lover, for in truth it has a
strange and ominous charm, this massive grave-looking plant with the
large oval leaves, heavy sombre purple blossoms, and big black
"wolf-cherries."[16]
[Footnote 16: Rabbits eat the leaves without harm to themselves, but
their flesh becomes injurious to human beings. A case of poisoning of
this sort was lately reported from Oxted.]
Next to the dwale in the nightshade family must rank the henbane, a
fallen angel among wildflowers; for its beauty is of the sickly and
fetid kind, which at once attracts and repels. It is curious that in the
lines from Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" the epithet "dank" should be
given to the hemlock, to which it is quite unsuited, rather than to the
henbane, where its appropriateness could not be questioned; for the
stalk, leaves, and flowers of the henbane are alike clammy to the touch.
Presumably this uncertain and sporadic herb has become rarer of late
years; for whereas it is frequently stated in books to be "common in
waste places," one may visit hundreds of waste places without a glimpse
of it. In the _Flora of the Lake District_ (1885) Arnside is given as
one of its localities; but I was told by a resident that he had only
once seen it there, and then it had sprung up in his garden.
It is in similar places that the thorn-apple, another cousin to the
nightshade, is apt to make its un-invited appearance; less a felon,
perhaps, than a sturdy rogue and vagabond among flowers of ill repute. A
year or two ago, I was told by the holder of an allotment-garden that a
great number of thorn-apples were springing up in his ground; and
knowing my interest in flowers he sent me a small basketful of the young
plants, which, rather to my neighbours' surprise, I set out in a row,
like lettuces, in a corner of my back-yard. There they flourished well,
and in due course made a fine show with their trumpet-shaped white
flowers and the big thorny capsules whence the plant takes its name. It
is not a bad-looking fellow, but awkward and hulking, and quite devoid
of the sickly grace of the henbane or of the bodeful gloom of the
dwale.
Passing now to the handsome but acrid tribe of the _ranunculi_, and
omitting the poisonous but interesting baneberry, of which I have
already spoken, we come to two formidable plants, the hellebore and the
monk's-hood, which have been famous from earliest times for their
dangerous propensities. The green hellebore, though in Westmorland named
"felon grass," is a less felonious-looking flower than its close kinsman
the fetid hellebore, whose general appearance, owing to the crude pale
green of its purple-tipped sepals, and the reluctance of its globe-like
buds to expand themselves fully, is one of insalubrity and unripeness.
But it is a plant of distinction, some two or three feet in height; and
as it flowers before the winter is well past, it can hardly fail to
arrest attention in the few places where it is to be found: in Arundel
Park, in Sussex, it may be seen growing in close conjunction with the
deadly nightshade--a noteworthy pair of desperadoes.
The other malefactor of the ranunculus family is the aconite, or
monk's-hood, a poisonous but very picturesque flower with deep blue
blossoms, which takes its name from the hood-like appearance of the
upper sepal. "It beareth," Gerarde tells us, "very fair and goodly blew
floures in shape like an helmet, which are so beautiful that a man would
thinke they were of some excellent vertue." A traitor, a masked bandit
it is, of such evil reputation that, according to Pliny, it kills man,
"unless it can find in him something else to kill," some disease, to
wit; and thus it holds its place in the pharmacopoeia.
The umbellifers include a number of outlaws such as the water-dropworts
and cowbane; but among the dangerous members of the tribe there is only
one that attains to real greatness, and that of course is the hemlock, a
poisoner of old-established renown, as witness the death of Socrates.
"Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark" is one of the ingredients in the
witches' cauldron in _Macbeth_, and the hemlock's name has always been
one to conjure with, which may account for the fact that several
kindred, but less eminent plants unlawfully aspire to it, and are
erroneously thus classed. But the true hemlock is unmistakable: the
stout bloodspotted stem distinguishes it from the lesser crew; its
finely cut fernlike leaves are exceedingly beautiful; and it is of
stately habit--I have seen it growing to the height of nine feet, or
more, in places where the surrounding brushwood had to be overtopped.
Let us give their due, then, to these outlaws of whom I have spoken,
these Robin Hoods of the floral world. Bandits and highwaymen they may
be; but after all, our woods and waysides would be much duller if they
were banished.
XX
SOME MARSH-DWELLERS
Here are cool mosses deep.
TENNYSON.
WHAT Thoreau wrote of his Massachusetts swamps is hardly less true of
ours; a marsh is everywhere a great allurement for botanists. By a road
which crosses a certain Sussex Common there is a church, and close
behind the church a narrow swampy piece of ground known as "the great
bog," which has all the appearance of being waste and valueless; yet
whenever I visit the place I think of Thoreau's words: "_My_ temple is
the swamp." For that bog, ignored or despised by the dwellers round the
Common, except when a horse or a cow gets stuck in it and has to be
hauled out with ropes, is sacred ground to the flower-lover, as being
the home not only of a number of characteristic plants--lesser
skull-cap, sun-dew, bog-bean, bog-asphodel, marsh St. John's-wort, and
the scarcer species of marsh bedstraw--but of one of our rarest and most
beautiful gentians, the Calathian violet, known and esteemed by the old
herbalists as the "marsh-felwort."
The attention of anyone whose thoughts are attuned to flowers must at
once be arrested by the colouring of this splendid plant, for its large
funnel-shaped blossoms are of the rich gentian blue, striped with green
bands, and as it grows not in the bog itself, but on the close-adjoining
banks of heather, it is easily accessible. Yet fortunately, in the
locality of which I am speaking, it seems to be untouched by those who
cross the Common. On the afternoon in early September when I first found
the place, a number of children were blackberrying there, and I dreaded
every moment to see them turn aside to pick a bunch of the gentians,
which doubtless would soon have been thrown aside to wither, as is the
fate of so many spring flowers; but though the blue petals were
conspicuous in the heather they were left entirely unmolested. For this
merciful abstinence there were probably two reasons: one that the
flower-picking habit is exhausted before the autumn; the other that the
gentians, however beautiful, are not among the recognized
favourites--daffodils, primroses, violets, forget-me-nots, and the
like--that by long custom have taken hold of the imagination of
childhood. Had it been otherwise, this rare little annual could hardly
have survived so long.
In botanical usage there seems to be no difference between the terms
"marsh" and "bog," nor need we, I think, follow the rather strained
distinction drawn by Anne Pratt, a writer who, though belonging to a
somewhat wordy and sentimental school, and indulging in a good deal of
what might be called "Anne-prattle," had so real a love of her subject
that her best book, _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_, affords very agreeable
reading. "The distinction between a bog and a marsh," she says, "is
simply that the latter is more wet, and that the foot sinks in; while on
a bog the soft soil, though it yields to the pressure of the foot, rises
again." The definition itself seems hardly to be based on _terra firma_;
but we can fully agree with the writer's conclusion that, at the worst,
an adventurous botanist "is often rewarded for the temporary chill by
the beauty of the plant which he has gathered." That is a consolation
which I have not seldom enjoyed.
But a pleasanter name, in my opinion, than either "marsh" or "bog," is
one which is common in the Lake District, and in the northern counties
generally, viz. "a moss." It sounds cool and comforting. I recall an
occasion when, in the course of a visit to the Newton Regny moss, near
Penrith, "the foot sank in," and a good deal more than the foot; but the
acquaintance then made for the first time with that giant of the
_ranunculus_ order, the great spearwort, was sufficient recompense, for
who would complain of a wetting when he met with a buttercup four feet
in stature?
It so happened, however, that the plant in whose quest I had ventured on
the precarious surface of the Newton Regny moss--the great
bladderwort--was not to be found on that occasion, though it is
reported to make a fine show there in August; possibly, in an early
season, it had already finished its flowering, and had sunk, after the
inconsiderate manner of its tribe, to the bottom of the pools. Nor did I
see its rarer sister, the lesser bladderwort; with whom indeed I have
only once had the pleasure of meeting, and that was in a rather awkward
place, a deep pond lying close below a railway-bank, and overlooked by
the windows of the passing trains, so that I not only had to swim for a
flower, but to consult a time-table before swimming, in order to avoid
having a "gallery" at the moment when seclusion was desired.
Our North-country "mosses" are indeed temples to the flower-lover, by
virtue both of the rarer species that inhabit them, and of the unbroken
succession of beautiful plants that they maintain, from the rich gold of
the globe-flower in early summer to the exquisite purity of the grass of
Parnassus in autumn. Among these bog-plants there is one which to me is
very fascinating, though writers are often content to describe its
strange purple blossoms as "dingy"--I allude to that wilder relative of
the wild strawberry, the marsh-cinquefoil, which, though rather local,
is in habit decidedly gregarious. For several years it had eluded me in
a Carnarvonshire valley; until one day, wandering by the riverside, I
came upon a swampy expanse where it was growing in hundreds, remarkable
both for the deep rusty hue of its petals, and for the large
strawberry-like fruit that was just beginning to form.
Apart from the more extensive "mosses," the lower slopes of the
mountains, both in Cumberland and Wales, are often rich in flowers
unsuspected by the wayfarer, who, keeping to some upland track, sees
nothing on either side but bare peaty moors that appear to be entirely
barren. And barren in many cases they are. You may wander for miles and
not see a flower; then suddenly perhaps, on rounding a rock, you will
find yourself in one of these natural gardens in the wilderness, where
the ground is pink with red rattle growing so thickly as to hide the
grass; or white with spotted orchis, handsomer and in greater abundance
than is dreamed of in the south; or, a still more glorious sight, tinged
over large spaces with the yellow of the bog-asphodel, a plant which is
beautiful in its fruit as well as its flower, for when the blossoms are
passed the dry wiry stems turn to deep orange. Sun-dews are everywhere;
the quaint and affable butterwort is plastered over the wet rocks; and
the marsh St. John's-wort, so unlike the rest of its family that the
relationship is not always recognized, is frequent in the spongy pools.
Here and there, a small patch of pink on the grey heath, will be seen
the delicate bog-pimpernel, which might take rank as the fairest flower
of the marsh, were it not that the diminutive ivy-leaved campanula is
also trailing its fairy-like form through the wet grasses, among which
it might wholly escape notice unless search were made for it. To realize
the perfection of its beauty--the exquisite structure of its small green
leaves, slender thread-like stems, and bells of palest blue--you must go
down on your knees to examine it, however damp the ground; a fitting act
of homage to one of the loveliest of Flora's children.
Better cultivation, preceded by improved drainage, is ceaselessly
encroaching on our marshlands and lessening the number of their flowers.
The charming little cranberry, for instance, once so plentiful that it
came to market in wagonloads from the fens of the eastern counties, is
now far from common; and our cranberry-tarts have to be supplied from
oversea. But much more ravishing than the red berries are the
rose-coloured flowers, though they are known to scarcely one in a
thousand of the persons familiar with the fruit. I always think with
pleasure of the day when I first saw them, on the Whinlatter pass, near
Keswick, their small wiry stems creeping on the surface of the swamp, a
feast for an epicure's eye. It is under the open air, not under a
pie-crust, that such dainties are appreciated as they deserve.
These, then, being some of the many attractions offered by our "mosses,"
is it surprising that the lover of flowers should play the part of a
modern "moss-trooper," and ride out over the border in search for such
imperishable spoil? His part, indeed, is a much wiser one than that of
the old freebooters; for who would risk life in the forcible lifting of
other persons' cattle, when at the slight expense to which Anne Pratt
alluded--the temporary chill caused by the sinking of his foot in a
marsh--he can enrich himself far more agreeably in the manner which I
have described?
XXI
A NORTHERN MOOR
Where Tees in tumult leaves his source,
Thundering o'er Caldron and High Force.
SCOTT.
A FIRST glance at the bleak and inhospitable moorland of Upper Teesdale
would not lead one to suppose that it is famous for its flora. No more
desolate-looking upland could be imagined; the great wolds stretch away
monotonously, broken only by a few scars that overhang the course of the
stream, and devoid of the grandeur that is associated with mountain
scenery. No houses are visible, except a few white homesteads that dot
the slopes--their whiteness, it is said, being of service to the farmers
when they return in late evening from some distant market and are faced
with the difficulty of finding their own doors. Its wildness is the one
charm of the place; in that it is unsurpassed.
But this bare valley, botanically regarded, is a bit of the far North,
interpolated between Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire, where the
Teesdale basalt or "whinstone" affords an advanced station for many
rare plants of the highland type as they trend southward; and there, for
five or six miles, from the upper waterfall of Caldron Snout to that of
High Force, the banks of the Tees, with the rough pastures, scars, and
fells that form its border, hold many floral treasures.
The first flower to attract attention on these wild lawns is that queen
of violets, the mountain pansy (_viola lutea_), not uncommon on many
midland and northern heaths, but nowhere else growing in such
prodigality as here, or with such rich mingling of colours--orange
yellow, creamy white, deep purple, and velvet black--till the eye of the
traveller is sated with the gorgeous tints. To the violet tribe this
pansy stands in somewhat the same relation as does the bird's-eye
primrose to the _primulas_; it is a mountain cousin, at once hardier and
more beautiful than its kinsfolk of wood and plain. Seeing it in such
abundance, we can understand why Teesdale has been described as "the
gardener's paradise;" but the expression is not a fitting one, for
"gardener" suggests "trowel," and the nurseryman is the sort of Peri to
whom the gates of this paradise ought to be for ever closed.
But perhaps the first stroll which a visitor to Upper Teesdale is likely
to take, is by the bank of the river just above High Force; and here the
most conspicuous plant is a big cinquefoil, the _potentilla fruticosa_,
a shrub about three feet in height, bearing large yellow flowers. Rare
elsewhere, it is in exuberance beside the Tees; and I remember the
amused surprise with which a dalesman regarded me, when he saw my
interest in a weed that to him was so familiar and so cheap.
But the smaller notabilities of the district have to be personally
searched for; they do not obtrude themselves on the wayfarer's glance.
On the Yorkshire side of the stream stands Cronkley Scar, a buttress of
the high moor known as Mickle Fell; and here, in the wet gullies, may be
found such choice northern plants as the Alpine meadow-rue; the Scottish
asphodel (_Tofieldia_), a small relative of the common bog-asphodel; and
the curious viviparous bistort, another highland immigrant, bearing a
spike of dull white flowers and small bulbs below.
The fell above the scar is a desolate tract, frequented by golden plover
and other moorland birds. On one occasion when I ascended it I was
overtaken by a violent storm of wind and rain, which compelled me to
leave the further heights of Mickle Fell unexplored, and to retreat to
the less exposed pastures of Widdibank on the opposite side of the Tees,
here a broad but shallow mountain stream, which in dry weather can be
forded without difficulty but becomes a roaring torrent after heavy
rains. In the course of two short visits, one in mid-July, the other in
the spring of the following year, I twice had the opportunity of seeing
the river in either mood, first in unruffled tranquillity, then in
furious spate.
It is in May or early June that Teesdale is at the height of its glory;
for the plant which lends it a special renown is the spring gentian,
perhaps the brightest jewel among all British flowers, small, but a true
Alpine, and of that intense blue which signalizes the gentian race. Here
this noble flower grows in plenty, not in wide profusion like the
pansies, but in large and thriving colonies, not confined to one side of
the stream. It was on the Durham bank that I first saw it--one of those
rare scenes that a flower-lover cannot forget, for the blue gentians
were intermingled with pink bird's-eye primroses, only less lovely than
themselves, and close by were a few spikes of the Alpine bartsia, whose
sombre purple was in marked contrast with the brilliant hues of its
companions.
Of this rare bartsia I had plucked a single flower on my previous visit
to the same spot, but then in somewhat hurried circumstances. I had been
crossing the wide pastures near Widdibank farm in company with a friend,
who, having heard rumours of the temper of Teesdale bulls, had unwisely
allowed his thoughts to be somewhat distracted from the pansies. We were
in the middle of a field of vast extent, when I heard my companion
asking anxiously: "Is _that_ one?" It certainly _was_ one; not a pansy,
but a bull; and he was advancing towards us with very unfriendly noises
and gestures. We therefore retired as quickly as we could, without
seeming to run--he slowly following us--in the direction of the river;
and there, under a high bank, over which we expected every moment the
bulky head to reappear, I saw the Alpine bartsia, and stooped to pick
one as we fled, my friend mildly deprecating even so slight a delay.
Now, however, on my second visit, I was able to examine the bank at my
leisure, and to have full enjoyment of as striking a group of flowers as
could be seen on English soil--gentian, bird's-eye primrose, Alpine
bartsia--and as if these were not sufficient, the mountain pansy running
riot in the pasture just above.
So far, I have spoken only of the plants which I myself saw; there are
other and greater rarities in Teesdale which the casual visitor can
hardly expect to encounter. The yellow marsh-saxifrage (_S. hirculus_)
occurs in two or three places on the slopes of Mickle Fell; so, too, in
limestone crevices does the mountain-avens (_dryas octopetala_), and the
winter-green (_pyrola secunda_); while on Little Fell, which lies
further to the south-west, towards Appleby, the scarce Alpine
forget-me-not is reported to be plentiful. I was told by a botanist
that, in crossing the moors from Teesdale to Westmorland, he once picked
up what he took for a fine clump of the common star-saxifrage, and
afterwards found to his surprise that it was the Alpine snow-saxifrage
(_S. nivalis_), which during the past thirty years has become
exceedingly rare both in the Lake District and in North Wales.