thick foliage the pollards in our hedge-rows; and, creeping up the sides
of the old barn, and chimney of the cottage, nearly hides them from our
sight; affording a sheltered roosting-place to many poor birds, and is
almost their only refuge in the cold season of the year. But the ivy can
boast of much more extensive service to the poor wayfaring beings of
creation, than the merely affording them a covering from the winds of
winter. Those two extreme quarters of our year, autumn and spring, yield
to most animals but a very slender and precarious supply of food; but
the ivy in those periods saves many from want and death; and the
peculiar situations, in which it prefers to flourish, are essential to
the preservation of this supply, as in less sheltered ones it would be
destroyed. In the month of October the ivy blooms in profusion, and
spreading over the warm side of some neglected wall, or the sunny bark
of the broad ash on the bank, its flowers become a universal banquet to
the insect race. The great black fly (musca grossa), and its numerous
tribe, with multitudes of small winged creatures, resort to them; and
there we see those beautiful animals, the latest birth of the year, the
admiral (vanessa atalanta) and peacock (vanessa Io) butterflies, hanging
with expanded wings like open flowers themselves, enjoying the sunny
gleam, and feeding on the sweet liquor that distils from the nectary of
this plant. As this honey is produced in succession by the early or
later expansion of the bud, it yields a constant supply of food, till
the frosts of November destroy the insects, or drive them to their
winter retreats. Spring arrives; and in the bitter months of March,
April, and even May, at times, when the wild products of the field are
nearly consumed, the ivy ripens its berries, and then almost entirely
constitutes the food of the missel-thrush, wood-pigeon, and some other
birds; and now these shy and wary birds, that commonly avoid the haunts
of man, constrained by hunger, will approach our dwellings, to feed upon
the ripe berries of the ivy. Now too the blackbird and the thrush resort
to its cover, to conceal their nests. These early-building birds find
little foliage at this period sufficient to hide their habitations; and
did not the ivy lend its aid to preserve them, and no great number are
preserved, perhaps few nests would be hidden from the young eyes that
seek them. The early expansion of the catkins of the sallow (salix
caprea), and others of the willow tribe, whence the bee extracts its
first food, and the late blooming of this ivy, are indispensable
provisions for the existence of many of the insect race; the “young
raven does not cry in vain,” nor is any thing abandoned by that power
which called it into being.
We all seem to love the ivy,
“The wanton ivy wreath’d in amorous twines,”
more than any other uncultured evergreen that we possess; yet it is
difficult satisfactorily to answer why we have this regard for it. As a
lover of the lone, the ivy-mantled ruin, I have often questioned with
myself the cause and basis of my regard for that, which was but a
fragment of what might have been formerly splendid, and intrinsically
possessed but little to engage admiration, yet wreathed in the verdure
of the ivy, was admired; but was never satisfied, perhaps unwilling to
admit the answer that my mind seemed to give. The ivy is a dependent
plant, and delights in waste and ruin. We do not often tolerate its
growth when the building is in repair and perfect; but, if time
dilapidate the edifice, the ivy takes possession of the fragment, and we
call it beautiful; it adorns the castle, but is an indispensable
requisite to the remains of the monastic pile. There is an abbey in the
North of England, which has been venerated by all its late possessors.
It is trimmed, made neat, and looks, perhaps, much as it did formerly,
except being in ruins. The situation is exquisite, the remains are
splendid, yet with many it fails to excite such interest as it should
do. It is a bare reality. A ruin in the West of England once interested
me greatly. The design of revisiting and drawing it was expressed at the
time. A few days only elapsed; but the inhabitant of a neighboring
cottage had most kindly labored hard in the interval, and pulled down
“all the nasty ivy, that the gentleman might see the ruin.” He did see
it, but every charm had departed. These two instances, from many that
might be advanced, manifest that ivy most frequently gives to these
ancient edifices the idea of beauty, and contributes chiefly to
influence our feelings when viewing them. The ruins of a fortress, or
warlike tower, may often historically interest us from the renown of its
founder or its possessor, some scene transacted, some villain punished,
hero triumphant, or cause promoted, to which we wished success: but the
quiet, secluded, monastic cell, or chapel, has no tale to tell; history
hardly stays to note even its founder’s name; and all the rest is doubt
and darkness; yet, shrouded in its ivied folds, we reverence the
remains, we call it picturesque, we draw, we engrave, we lithograph the
ruin. We do not regard this ivy as a relic of ancient days; as having
shadowed the religious recluse, and with it often, doubtless, piety and
faith; for it did not hang around the building in old time, but is
comparatively a modern upstart, a sharer of monastic spoils, a usurper
of that which has been abandoned by another. The tendril pendent from
the orient window, lightly defined in the ray which it excludes, twining
with graceful ease round some slender shaft, or woven amid the tracery
of the florid arch, is elegantly ornamental, and gives embellishment to
beauty; but the main body of the ivy is dark, sombre, massy; yet, strip
it from the pile, and we call it sacrilege, the interest of the whole is
at an end, the effect ceases,—
“One moment seen, then lost for ever.”
Yet what did the ivy effect? what has departed with it? This evanescent
charm perhaps consists in the obscurity, in the sobriety of light it
occasioned, in hiding the bare reality, and giving to fancy and
imagination room to expand, a plaything to amuse them.
We still retain the name of this plant as given by Pliny, though we know
no reason why it was so called; but the word “helix,” winding about, or
twisting, is sufficiently apposite.
The foxglove (digitalis purpurea) is found with us in one or two places
only, rather existing than flourishing manifesting, like many other
plants, a marked partiality to particular soils. It produces an
abundance of seed, yet seems to wander little from the station its
progenitors had fixed on, as if that alone was congenial to its habits;
but with us the soil varies greatly. In the West of England, it thrives
and increases with particular luxuriance; but many counties may be
searched in vain for a single specimen. It seems to prefer a sandy,
gravelly, or loose drained soil; not I think vegetating in strong
retentive earths. We have few indigenous plants, not one, perhaps, which
we have so often summoned to aid us in our distresses as the foxglove:
no plant, not even the colchicum, has been more the object of our fears,
our hopes, our trust, and disappointment, than this: we have been
grateful for the relief it has afforded, and we have mourned the
insufficiency of its powers;—
——“Thy last, sole aid (which art can give)
The wo-worn parent seeks, and, hoping, clings
In tearless wretchedness to thee; watches with
Anxious heart thy subtle progress through the
Day, and of thee fitful dreams through all the
Night—
——spare, if thou
Canst, his hopeless grief; save worth, save beauty,
From an early grave.”
As a mere flower, the digitalis is a very handsome plant; and could we
rely upon its yielding the virtues it is considered to possess, or could
we regulate or control its influence, it would exist unrivalled for
beauty and worth amidst our island plants. Why such a name as
“foxesgloves,” was bestowed upon this plant it is difficult to say,
perhaps from the bare resemblance to finger-cases presented by its
flowers: but I am not one of those who cavil or jeer at the common, or
“vulgar names,” as we are in the habit of denominating the unscientific
appellations of plants; for we must remember, that the culling of herbs
and simples, and compounding preparations from them, to relieve the
sufferings of nature, were the first rudiments of all our knowledge, the
most grateful exertion of human talent, and, after food and clothing,
the most necessary objects of life. In ages of simplicity, when every
man was the usual dispenser of good or bad, benefit or injury, to his
household or his cattle—ere the veterinary art was known, or the drugs
of other regions introduced, necessity looked up to the products of our
own clime, and the real or fanciful virtues of them were called to the
trial, and manifests the reasonableness of bestowing upon plants and
herbs such names as might immediately indicate their several uses, or
fitness for application; when distinctive characters, had they been
given, would have been little attended to; and hence, the numbers found
favorable to the cure of particular complaints, the ailments of domestic
creatures, or deemed injurious to them. Modern science may wrap up the
meaning of its epithets in Greek and Latin terms; but in very many cases
they are the mere translations of these despised, “old, vulgar names.”
What pleasure it must have afforded the poor sufferer in body or in
limb,—what confidence he must have felt for relief, when he knew that
the good neighbor who came to bathe his wounds, or assuage his inward
torments, brought with him such things as “all-heal, break-stone,
bruise-wort, gout-weed, fever-few” (fugio), and twenty other such
comfortable mitigators of his afflictions; why, their very names would
almost charm away the sense of pain! The modern recipe contains no such
terms of comfortable assurance: its meanings are all dark to the
sufferer; its influence unknown. And then the good herbalist of old
professed to have plants which were “all good:” they could assuage anger
by their “loosestrife;” they had “honesty, truelove, and heartsease.”
The cayennes, the soys, the ketchups, and extratropical condiments of
these days, were not required, when the next thicket would produce “poor
man’s pepper, sauce alone, and hedge-mustard;” and the woods and wilds
around, when they yielded such delicate viands as “fat-hen, lambs-
quarters, way-bread, butter and eggs, with codlins and cream,” afforded
no despicable bill of fare. No one ever yet thought of accusing our old
simplers of the vice of avarice, or love of lucre; yet their “thrift” is
always to be seen: we have their humble “pennywort, herb two-pence,
moneywort, silverweed, and gold.” We may smile, perhaps, at the
cognomens, or the commemorations of friendships, or of worth, recorded
by the old simplers, at their herbs, “Bennet, Robert, Christopher,
Gerard, or Basil;” but do the names so bestowed by modern science read
better, or sound better? it has “Lightfootia, Lapeyrousia, Hedwigia,
Schkuhria, Scheuchzeria;” and surely we may admit, in common
benevolence, such partialities as “good King Henry, sweet William, sweet
Marjory, sweet Cicely, Lettuce, Mary Gold, and Rose.” There are
epithets, however, so very extraordinary, that we must consider them as
mere perversions, or at least incapable of explanation at this period.
The terms of modern science waver daily; names undergo an annual change,
fade with the leaf, and give place to others; but the ancient terms,
which some may ridicule, have remained for centuries, and will yet
remain, till nature is swallowed up by art. No: let our ancient
herbalists, “a grave and whiskered race,” retain the honors due to their
labors, which were most needful and important ones at those periods: by
them were many of the casualties and sufferings of man and beast
relieved; and by aid of perseverance, better constitutions to act upon,
and faith to operate, than we possess, they probably effected cures,
which we moderns should fail to accomplish if attempted.
Upon an old bank, tangled with bushes and rubbish, we find in abundance
that very early translated, and perfectly domesticated flower, the
cottage snowdrop (galanthus nivalis); a plant that is undoubtedly a
native of our island, for I have seen it in situations where nature only
could introduce it, where it was never planted by the hand of man, or
strayed from any neighboring cultivation. Yet in most places where we
find this flower, it is of manifest or suspicious origin; and with us it
partakes of this latter character, though no remains of any ancient
dwelling are observable near it. The damask rose, the daffodil, or the
stock of an old bullace plum, will long remain, and point out where once
a cottage existed; but all these, and most other tokens, in time waste
away and decay; while the snowdrop will remain, increase, and become the
only memorial of man and his labors.[23] Many flowers present strong
distinctive characters, or will, at least often do, excite in us
variable feelings: the primrose, and the daisy, if not intrinsically
gay, call forth cheerful and pleasing sensations; and the aspect or
glance of some others will awaken different affections. The snowdrop is
a melancholy flower. The season in which the “fair maids of February”
come out, is the most dreary and desolate of our year: they peep through
the snow that often surrounds them, shivering and cheerless: they convey
no idea of reviving nature, and are scarcely the harbingers of milder
days, but rather the emblem of sleety storms, and icy gales, (snowdrop
weather), and wrap their petals round the infant germ, fearing to admit
the very air that blows; and, when found beyond the verge of
cultivation, they most generally remind us of some deserted dwelling, a
family gone, a hearth that smokes no more. A lover of cold, it maintains
the beautiful ovate form of its flower only in a low temperature; warmth
expanding the petals, vitiating its grace, and destroying its character.
It seems to preserve its native purity free from every contamination; it
will become double, but never wanders into varieties, is never streaked
or tinged with the hues of other flowers.
One of our pasture grasses is particularly affected by dry weather.
Several are injured frequently by drought acting upon the stalk, not
molesting the root, but withering the succulent base of the straw, which
arises from the upper joint; in consequence of which, the panicle, and
connecting straw, dry away, while the foliage and lower leaves remain
uninjured. None are so obnoxious to this injury as the yellow oat-grass
(avena flavescens), and in some seasons almost the whole of its panicles
will be withered in a field of surrounding verdure. Pastures that are
grazed must from circumstances be drier than those covered with herbage
fit for the scythe; yet, from some unknown cause, this oat-grass seems
less injured in this respect in grazing grounds, than in those where the
herbage is reserved for mowing.
The plain, simple, unadorned vervain[24] (verbena officinalis) is one of
our most common, and decidedly waste-loving plants. Disinclined to all
cultured places, it fixes its residence by way-sides, and old stone
quarries, thriving under the feet of every passing creature. The
celebrity that this plant obtained in very remote times, without its
possessing one apparent quality, or presenting by its manner of growth,
or form, any mysterious character to arrest the attention, or excite
imagination is very extraordinary, and perhaps unaccountable: most
nations venerated, esteemed, and used it; the ancients had their
Verbenalia, at which period the temples and frequented places were
strewed and sanctified with vervain; the beasts for sacrifice, and the
altars, were verbenated, the one filleted, the other strewed, with the
sacred herb; no incantation or lustration was perfect without the aid of
this plant. That mistletoe[25] should have excited attention in days of
darkness and ignorance, is not a subject of surprise, from the
extraordinary and obscure manner of its growth and propagation, and the
season of the year in which it flourishes; for even the great lord Bacon
ridicules the idea of its being propagated by the operations of a bird
as an “idle tradition,” saying, that the sap which produces this plant
is such as the “tree doth excerne and cannot assimilate.” These
circumstances, and its great dissimilarity from the plant on which it
vegetates, all combine to render it a subject of superstitious wonder:
but that a lowly, ineffective herb like our vervain should have
stimulated the imaginations of the priests of Rome, of Gaul, and of
Greece, the magi of India, and the Druids of Britain, is passing
comprehension; and, as Pennant observes, “so general a consent proves
that the custom arose before the different nations had lost all
communication with each other.” We might with some appearance of reason,
perhaps, name the Druids of Gaul as the point, whence certain mysteries
and observances were conveyed to the priesthood of various nations; but
it would be difficult to assign a motive for their fixing upon such
plants as vervain, and some others, to give efficacy to their ceremonies
and rites. In some of the Welsh counties, vervain is known by the name
of “Ilyssiaur hudol,” the enchanter’s plant. It seems to have had
ascribed to it the power of curing the bites of all rabid animals,
arresting the progress of the venom of serpents, reconciling
antipathies, conciliating friendships, &c. Gerard, after detailing some
of its virtues from Pliny, observes, that “many odde old wives’ fables
are written of vervaine tending to witchcraft and sorcerie, which you
may read elsewhere, for I am not willing to trouble you with reporting
such trifles as honest ears abhorre to hear.” To us moderns its real
virtues are unknown; regular practice does not allow that it possesses
any medicinal efficacy, and its fanciful peculiarities are in no repute;
yet it seems to hanker after its lost fame, and lingers around the
dwellings of man; for though not solely found about our habitations, as
Miller thought, yet generally, when perceived, it is near some inhabited
or ruined residence, not as a stray from cultivation, but from
preference. Our village doctresses, an almost extinct race of useful,
valuable women, the consolers, the comforters, and often mitigators of
the ailments of the poor, still make use of vervain tea as a
strengthener, and the dried powder of its leaves as a vermifuge; but
probably in another generation all the venerated virtues of the vervain
will be consigned to oblivion. This plant seems to be the native growth
of many districts in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The dyers’ weed, yellow weed, weld, or wold (reseda luteola),[26]
thrives in all our abandoned stone quarries, upon the rejected rubbish
of the lime-kiln, and waste places of the roads, apparently a perfectly
indigenous plant. Unmindful of frost, or of drought, it preserves a
degree of verdure, when nearly all other vegetation is seared up by
these extremes in exposed situations. It was, and is yet, I believe,
cultivated in England for the use of the dyer. We import it, however,
into Bristol from France; and it sells in that city for ten shillings
per cwt. in a dry state. It gives a fine, permanent, yellow color to
cottons, silks, and woollens, in a variety of shades, by the aid of
alum, &c. A blue tincture changes these to as fine a green. Injury has
certainly been occasioned by writers on agricultural affairs
recommending, without due inquiry, the culture of this or that crop; and
I would not incur a censure that I blame in another; yet I cannot but
suggest the possible profit that might arise from the culture of this
plant. If foreigners derive sufficient encouragement to import it,
notwithstanding the charges of freight, port duties, and various
consequent expenses, why can it not be grown with us, and afford
superior remuneration, not having such deductions to diminish the
profits? The culture of it seems very simple, the manner of conducting
the crop, and harvesting the product, attended with little trouble or
risk. Marshal[27] prefers a good soil; others again say, that it becomes
stalky in a rich soil. With us it grows luxuriantly, three or four feet
high, on a thin, stony, undressed soil, apparently the very station it
prefers; and we have about us much land of this kind, not intrinsically
worth ten shillings an acre. It might be rash to predict the amount of a
crop in such soils, but a ton to an acre is said to be but a small
allowance; yet the produce of only this quantity, which would procure in
the market a return of 10_l._ without any expenditure for manure, no
more manual labor after the seed is sown, for nine months, than three
thinnings, and cleanings with the hoe, and the crop harvested within the
year, would be no trifling profit, and may be deserving of some
consideration.[28] The bark, the wood, the flower, the leaves of many of
our native trees and plants afford a yellow dye; we have no color so
easily produced as this is; and it is equally remarkable, that, amidst
all the varied hues of spring, yellow is the most predominant in our
wild and cultured plants. The primrose, cowslip, pilewort, globe-flower,
butter-cup, cherlock, crocus, all the cabbage tribe, the dandelions,
appear in this dress. The very first butterfly, that will
“aloft repair,
And sport, and flutter in the fields of air,”
is the sulphur butterfly (gonepteryx rhamni),[29] which in the bright
sunny mornings of March we so often see under the warm hedge, or by the
side of some sheltered copse, undulating, and vibrating like the petal
of a primrose in the breeze. The blossoms of many of our plants afford
for the decoration of the fair a vast variety of colors and intermediate
tints; but they are all of them, or nearly so, inconstant or fugitive
before the light of the sun, or mutable in the dampness of the air,
except those obtained from yellow flowers: circumstances may vary the
shade, but yet it is mostly permanent. Yellow is again the livery of
autumn, in all the shades of ochre and of orange; the “sere and yellow
leaf” becomes the general cast of the season, the sober brown comes
next, and then decay.