create fresh sensations; but the love of nature, where the regard has
been a settled principle, is more permanent, and influences the feelings
as long as the occupations of life preserve any interest in our minds.
As a child, I viewed the wild field flowers and cropped them with
delight; as a young botanist, culled with rapture the various species,
returning often and again to my almost exhaustless treasure in the
copse; and even now, in the “sere and yellow leaf,” when, in some mild
vernal evening, I stroll through the grove, see the same floral splendor
which year after year has been spread before me, I mark it with
admiration and surprise, find it enchanting still, and fancy the present
loveliness superior to all that has been before. There we see that
beautiful little brilliant of the earth, like the name it bears (day’s
eye), cheerful and pleasing to all. The exquisite chasteness of mien,
and form of this flower, the contrast of its colors, and simplicity of
attitude which it displays when springing from out its grassy tuft, can
hardly be surpassed by any from another region. By its side peeps out
the bright gleeful blue eyes of the little germander speedwell, in
joyful gaiety—a lowly domestic plant that loves and seeks alliance with
its kind, and in small family associations, by united splendor,
decorates the foliage around. And there we find the stitch-wort,
mingling her snowy bloom immaculately pure, with pallid green: too
delicate to vegetate alone, it seeks the shelter of the hedge or copse,
trembles when the breeze goes by, and seems an emblem of innocence and
grace. And there the bright-flowered lotus with its pealike bloom, in
social union glows as burnished gold, animating and gilding with its
lustre all the tribes that spring near it; and fifty others, too, we
note, which, though common and disregarded by reason of our familiarity
with them, or expelled from favor by the novelty of far-fetched fair
ones, deserve more attention than we are disposed to afford them. There
are few plants which we look upon with more perfect contempt than that
common product of every soil, the ‘dandelion.’[30] Every child knows it,
and the little village groups which perambulate the hedges for the first
offspring of the year, amuse themselves by hanging circlets of its
stalks linked like a chain round their necks: yet if we examine this in
all the stages of its growth, we shall pronounce it a beautiful
production; and its blossom, though often a solitary one, is perhaps the
very first that enlivens the sunny bank of the hedge in the opening
year, peeping out from withered leaves, dry stalks, and desolation, as a
herald, telling us that nature is not dead, but reposing, and will
awaken to life again. And some of us, perhaps, can remember the pleasure
it afforded us in early days, when we first noticed its golden blossoms
under the southern shelter of the cottage hedge, thinking that the
‘winter was past,’ and that ‘the time of the singing of birds was come;’
and yet, possibly, when seen, it may renew some of that childish
delight, though the fervor of expectation is cooled by experience and
time. The form of this flower, with its ligulate petals many times
doubled is elegant and perfect; the brightness and liveliness of the
yellow, like the warm rays of an evening sun, are not exceeded in any
blossom, native or foreign, that I know of; and this, having faded away,
is succeeded by a head of down, which loosened from its receptacle, and
floating in the breeze, comes sailing calmly along before us, freighted
with a seed at its base; but so accurately adjusted is its buoyant power
to the burden it bears, that steadily passing on its way, it rests at
last in some cleft or cranny in the earth, preparatory to its period of
germination, appearing more like a flight of animated creatures than the
seed of a plant. This is a very beautiful appointment! but so common an
event as hardly to be noticed by us; yet it accomplishes effectually the
designs of nature, and plants the species at distances and in places
that no other contrivance could so easily and fitly effect. The seeds,
it is true, might have fallen and germinated around the parent plant,
but this was not the purpose of nature; yet may seem to some a very
unnecessary contrivance for the propagation of a common dandelion, whose
benefits to mankind as a medicine, though retained in our pharmacopœias,
and occasionally resorted to, seem of no great importance. Nor are we
sensible that its virtues are essential to any portion of the creation;
but this very circumstance should abate our pride, our assumed
pretensions of knowledge, as we may be assured that its existence,
though hidden from us, is required in the great scheme of nature, or
such elaborate and sufficient contrivances for its continuation and
increase would never have been called into action by Nature, who is so
remarkably simple in all her actions, economical in her ways, and frugal
of her means.
Some very extraordinary vegetable productions are now on the table
before me. Though not gathered in this neighborhood, I am induced to
give them a place with our notables, because I believe that they have
not been noticed, and afford a strong example of the persevering
endeavors that plants exert at times to maintain existence. One of these
is the tufted head and entire roots of a grass, gathered from a down fed
by sheep from time immemorial. It is probably that of the hard fescue
(festuca duriuscula), which, having been constantly eaten down by
cattle, has never thrown up flowering stems, giving out only radical
leaves. These appear to have been cropped short, as soon as they have
sprung up, the less succulent and strawy portions only being left, like
a ball upon the surface, as a bush constantly clipped by the gardener’s
shears. The root appears to have annually increased, though the upper
parts it was destined to nourish have been destroyed, until it became a
lock of closely compacted fibres, like a tuft of hair, six or eight
inches in length. Furze bushes,[31] growing upon many downs in Wales,
Devon, and Cornwall, assume commonly the appearance of large, green,
dense balls, every tender leaf being constantly shorn away by the sheep
and rabbits that frequent those places, and present, upon a larger
scale, the very appearance of these grass balls. Our specimens are
rather local than general, and were the produce of the Malvern hills.
The common brambles (rubus cæsius and fruticosus) may almost be
considered as evergreens. Hedgers to be sure they are: but we have few,
perhaps no other shrubby plant, naturally deciduous, excepting the
privet, that will retain its verdure through the year, preserving, by a
peculiar construction of its vessels, a portion of foliage unseared by
frosts, and contending with gales that destroy and strip away all the
honors of its neighbors. This circumstance enables us to observe a
curious, strongly defined line upon the leaves, like a glossy whitish
film, meandering over the surface, becoming progressively larger, with a
fine intestinal-like line running through the centre. What occasioned
this sinuous path long puzzled me satisfactorily to ascertain,
considering it entirely of vegetable origin; and all the various
polymorphous parasitics were successively thought of. At one time I
deemed it like puccinia, which vegetates beneath the cuticle of leaves:
but this was rejected; and probably I might long have wandered in error,
had not the Rev. Mr. Kirby dissipated all my conjectures by informing me
that it was the pathway of a small caterpillar. There are several
species of them which are placed by Reaumur in a tribe called
“mineuses,” all of which live upon the parenchyma, or pulpy substance
found between the cuticles or skins of leaves, gradually increasing in
size until matured for transformation to the chrysalis, when they eat
their way through the leaf, ultimately becoming moths, remarkable for
the brilliant metallic lustre of their wings, the fine central line
being the rejectments of the creature in the infant stages of its
growth. Though several plants afford sustenance to these races, we have
none on which this tortuous path is more strongly defined than the
leaves of brambles, and the ever-blowing rose. Notices of such incidents
may perhaps be considered as too trifling to record; but the naturalist,
from the habit of observing, sees many things not obvious to all
persons: his province is to investigate all the operations of nature,
and if he record them truly, he has done his duty; prolix and dull as
his remarks will be to some, yet to another they may afford information,
or tend to elucidate a conjecture. The bramble is a sadly reprobated
plant, and I cannot say much in its favor as an independent individual,
nor would I introduce it, to incommode by its society a thriving mound
of white thorn or of crab: but it generally introduces itself, and will
flourish greatly, where other and better fences languish, and then, by
intertwining its long flexile runners with the weakly products of the
hedge-row, will compose a guard, where without it we could with
difficulty have raised one. It will intrude, however, into many places
where it is not required, originating probably from the rejectments of
birds, and become a very unwelcome and tenacious inhabitant. Its long
tendrils are much used by us as binders for thatching, being pegged down
to prevent the straw coverings of ricks and such things being carried
away by the winds, and we are satisfied with its performances. By the
assistance of the bramble also, the new-placed turf is secured on the
graves of our poorer neighbors, until it unites and forms a uniform sod;
and during this service it will occasionally root itself, and become an
inhabitant not easily ejected from our church-yards. Badgers are said to
feed much upon the fruit of the bramble. They are certainly very fat and
fleshy about the time that the blackberry is ripe; but it is probable
that the acorns and crabs, which it finds at the same season, contribute
most to its nourishment.
The maple[32] (acer campestre) is found growing in all our fences,
generally reduced by the hedger’s bill to serve the same humble purposes
as the thorns and sloes associated with it. Sometimes, however, it is
permitted to assume the rank of a tree, when, if not possessing dignity,
it is certainly beautiful, and becomes an ornament in the hedge-row. It
is the earliest sylvan beau that is weary of its summer suit; first
shifting its dress to ochery shades, then trying a deeper tint, and
lastly assuming an orange vest; thus setting a fashion that ere long
becomes the garb of all except the rustic oak, which looks regardlessly
at the beau, and keeps its verdant robe unchanged. Soon tired of this,
the maple takes a pattern from his sober neighbor ash, throws its gaudy
trim away, and patiently awaits with all his peers the next new change.
In spring the woodbine wreathes its knots of green around the rugged
limbs of the maple; the rose beneath puts on its emerald gems, and then
our gallant sir will wear such colors too, fluttering through all its
summer’s day. When first the maple begins to autumnize the grove, the
extremities of the boughs alone change their color, but all the internal
and more sheltered parts still retain their verdure, which gives to the
tree the effect of a great depth of shade, and displays advantageously
the light, lively coloring of the sprays. We find the maple useful in
our hedges, not from the opposition it affords, but by reason of its
very quick growth from the stool after it has been cut, whence it makes
a fence in a shorter time than most of its companions; and when firewood
is an object, it soon becomes sufficiently large for this purpose. The
singular ruggedness of the branches and shoots when they have attained a
year’s growth, and the depth of the furrows, give it a strongly marked
character among our shrubs. The under side of the leaves in autumn, when
they become yellow, and dashed here and there with a few specks of red
and brown, appear, when magnified, like a very beautiful and perfect
mosaic pavement, with all its tesseræ arranged and fitted. If one of
these rugged young shoots be cut through horizontally with a sharp
knife, its cork-like bark presents the figure of a star with five or
more rays, sometimes irregularly, but generally exactly defined. A thin
slice from the surface is a beautiful and curious object in the
microscope, exhibiting the different channels, and variously formed
tubes, through which the sap flows, and the air circulates for the
supply of all the diversified requirements of the plant; and it is good
and delightful to contemplate the wonderful mechanism that has been
devised by the Almighty Architect, for the sustenance and particular
necessities of the simple maple, this “ditch trumpery,” as Gilpin calls
it; which naturally leads one to consider that, if he have so regarded
such humble objects, how much more has he accounted worthy of his
beneficence the more highly destined orders of his creation! As Evelyn
says, on another occasion, “I beg no pardon for this application, but
deplore my no better use of it.” Modern practice records no medicinal
virtues to be derived from the maple; but Pliny, in the quaint language
of old Philemon Holland, tells us that a cataplasm made from the roots
of this tree is “singular to be applied for the griefs of the liver, and
worketh mightily.” In summer the leaves of the hedge-row maple often
assume a whitish, mouldy look, which appears to be a mere exudation, as
it neither presents any after-character, nor have I observed that any
thing results from it. The young leaves, soon after their appearance in
the spring, are beset with numerous fine spines of a bright red color,
most probably occasioned by the puncture of some insect, though I have
never been able to discover any of the larvæ inclosed in them. Some
insects wound the leaves and sprays of plants for nutriment, though
generally the object seems to be the formation of a nidus for their
young, by the fluid that issues from the wound: but insects do something
more than merely puncturing the parts to force a liquor to exude; a
simple wound will not accomplish the desired object, as the sap not only
hardens on the surface, but acquires a particular form and consistence,
and even at times enlarges to a separate vegetable matter. The insect
that wounds the leaf of the oak, and occasions the formation of the
gall-nut, and those which are likewise the cause of the apple rising on
the sprays of the same tree, and those flower-like leaves on the buds
have performed very different operations, either by the instrument that
inflicted the wound, or by the injection of some fluid to influence the
action of the parts. That extraordinary hairy excrescence on the wild
rose (cynips rosæ), likewise the result of an insect’s wounds, resembles
no other nidus required for such creatures that we know of; and these
red spines on the leaf of the maple are different again from others. It
is useless to inquire into causes of which we probably can obtain no
certain result, but, judging by the effects produced by different
agents, we must conclude, that, as particular birds require and
fabricate from age to age very different receptacles for their young,
and make choice of dissimilar materials, though each species has the
same instruments to effect it, where, generally speaking, no sufficient
reasons for such variety of forms and texture is obvious, so it is
fitting that insects should be furnished with a variety of powers and
means to accomplish their requirements, having wants more urgent, their
nests being at times to be so constructed as to resist the influence of
seasons, to contain the young for much longer periods, even occasionally
to furnish a supply of food, or be a storehouse to afford it when wanted
by the infant brood.
The wild clematis, or traveller’s joy (clematis vitalba), thrives
greatly in some of the dry stony parts of our parish, insinuating its
roots into the clefts and passages of our limestone rocks, where those
of many other plants could not find admission or support; and forms in
our hedge-rows a heavy shapeless mass of runners and branches,
encumbering and overpowering its neighbors; many of which it often
destroys; and we see the clematis clinging round a few stinted, half-
vegetating thorns, constituting the only fence, miserable as it is. The
runners or branches are very strong and flexile, and are much used by
our peasantry as a binding for hedge fagots. The tubes, lymph ducts, and
air-vessels of this plant appear in a common magnifier beautifully
arranged, being large, and admitting the air freely to circulate through
them. Our village boys avail themselves of this circumstance, cut off a
long joint from a dry branch, light it, and running about, use it as
their seniors do the tobacco-pipe. They call it “smoke wood,” and the
action of the breath constantly agitating the fire, it will long
continue kindled. The pores are well seen by drawing some bright colored
liquor into them. I have often observed the long feathered part of the
seed at the entrance of holes made by mice on the banks, and probably in
hard seasons the seed may yield these creatures part of their supply.
The diversity of form and arrangement in the pores of the roots, stems,
and branches of plants, and the nerves, air-vessels, and fibres of the
leaves, are extremely wonderful and beautiful; and it is possible that
all the genera, species, and varieties, have more or less a different
conformation of some of these parts. It is from the agency of these
vessels, imbibing both from the air and the earth, compounding,
decomposing, and discharging, in a way we know little about, that the
sweetness of our fruits, the oil, the bread, and wine to glad the heart
of man, proceed; and grateful should we be for them. From the vegetable
world man derives his chief enjoyments: much of his fuel, most of his
food, and the chief of his clothing, have once circulated in the tubes
of a plant. The clematis plant possesses the power of preserving its
verdure, and even thriving, in situations and seasons, when most other
shrubby vegetation fails or languishes. With us its roots run amid loose
stones, and in rocky places, far from any spring or apparent moisture;
and yet, in those uncommonly dry summers of 1825 and 1826, it seemed to
flourish with more than usual vigor throwing out its long tendrils, of a
fine healthy green color, adorned with a profusion of blossoms, itself
and the bramble being in some places the only thriving vegetation in a
fence. It is marvellous how fibrous-rooted vegetables, the roots of
which penetrate no depth into the soil, are enabled in some seasons to
preserve any appearance of verdure, the earth they are fixed in seeming
divested of all moisture by the power of the sun, and being heated like
a sand-bath. The warmth of the earth in 1825 I omitted to record; but in
the following year, which was more dry, and nearly as hot, the
thermometer buried in the earth to the depth of three inches, in a
flower border where many plants were growing in that sort of languid
state which they present in such exhausting seasons, indicated the heat
of 110°.
Having said thus much of the clematis, the “withywind” of our peasantry,
it must not be supposed that I advocate the advantages of this plant as
a fence, but only tolerate it where we cannot induce much else to
thrive, it making something of a boundary line; and perhaps that is all,
for very frequently its numerous tendrils, and the downy clusters of its
caudated seeds are so interwoven, that the snow accumulates upon the
bush, and presses the whole to the earth, so that in the spring we
commonly find a gap to be repaired where the clematis has thriven. About
February, or towards the end of winter, this plant becomes stripped of
its feathery seeds, which is accomplished by mice, I believe the harvest
and the long-tailed one (mus sylvaticus) principally; with these they
form nest-like beds in the upper and thickest part of the hedge,
resorting to them in the day-time, where they enjoy in tolerable safety
the air and warmth of the season, in preference to their cold and damp
apartments in the earth, and I have occasionally disturbed them in their
dormitories; but at this time it is not observed that the seeds are much
fed upon by them, and probably are only collected as shelter in a
temporary dwelling.
The little excursions of the naturalist, from habit and from
acquirement, become a scene of constant observation and remark. The
insect that crawls, the note of the bird, the plant that flowers, or the
vernal green leaf that peeps out, engages his attention, is recognized
as an intimate, or noted from some novelty that it presents in sound or
aspect. Every season has its peculiar product, and is pleasing or
admirable, from causes that variously affect our different temperaments
or dispositions; but there are accompaniments in an autumnal morning’s
woodland walk, that call for all our notice and admiration: the peculiar
feeling of the air, and the solemn grandeur of the scene around us,
dispose the mind to contemplation and remark; there is a silence in
which we hear every thing, a beauty that will be observed. The stump of
an old oak is a very landscape, with rugged alpine steeps bursting
through forests of verdant mosses, with some pale, denuded, branchless
lichen, like a scathed oak, creeping up the sides or crowning the
summit. Rambling with unfettered grace, the tendrils of the briony
(tamus communis) festoon with its brilliant berries, green, yellow, red,
the slender sprigs of the hazel, or the thorn; it ornaments their
plainness, and receives a support its own feebleness denies. The agaric,
with all its hues, its shades, its elegant variety of forms, expands its
cone sprinkled with the freshness of the morning; a transient fair, a
child of decay, that “sprang up in a night, and will perish in a night.”
The squirrel, agile with life and timidity, gamboling round the root of
an ancient beech, its base overgrown with the dewberry (rubus cæsius),
blue with unsullied fruit, impeded in his frolic sports, half angry,
darts up the silvery bole again, to peep and wonder at the strange
intruder on his haunts. The jay springs up, and, screaming, tells of
danger to her brood; the noisy tribe repeat the call, are hushed, and
leave us; the loud laugh of the woodpecker, joyous and vacant; the
hammering of the nuthatch (sitta europæa), cleaving its prize in the
chink of some dry bough; the humblebee, torpid on the disk of the purple
thistle, just lifts a limb to pray forbearance of injury, to ask for
peace, and bid us
“Leave him, leave him to repose.”
The cinquefoil, or the vetch, with one lingering bloom yet appears, and
we note it from its loneliness. Spreading on the light foliage of the
fern, dry and mature, the spider has fixed her toils, and motionless in
the midst watches her expected prey, every thread and mesh beaded with
dew, trembling with the zephyr’s breath. Then falls the “sere and yellow
leaf,” parting from its spray without a breeze tinkling in the boughs,
and rustling scarce audibly along, rests at our feet, and tells us that
we part too. All these are distinctive symbols of the season, marked in
the silence and sobriety of the hour; and form, perhaps, a deeper
impression on the mind, than any afforded by the verdant promises, the
vivacities of spring, or the gay, profuse luxuriance of summer.
Such notes as these, such passing observations, are perhaps little
fitted for, or deserving of, arrangement, yet, in a woodland autumnal
ramble, we are naturally almost irresistibly, led to contemplate that
beautiful and varied race of vegetation included under the name of
fungi, so particularly fostered by this season, and which so greatly
delight to spring up in sylvan moisture and decay: nor is there perhaps
any country better constituted for the production of the whole of this
family than England is, particularly that portion of them denominated
agarics.[33] The various natures of our soil and pastures, the profusion
of our woods and copses, the humidity of our climate, united with the
general warmth of our autumn, accelerating rapid decay, and putrescence
of vegetable matter, all combine to give existence to this race. No
county is, I believe, more favored for the production of most of the
kinds than Monmouth, with its deep dark woods, and alpine downs. A
residence in that portion of the kingdom for some years introduced to my
notice a larger portion of this singular race than every botanist is
acquainted with. A sportsman then, but I fear I shall be called a
recreant brother of the craft, when I own having more than once let my
woodcock escape, to secure and bear away some of these fair but
perishable children of the groves. Travellers tell us of the splendor of
this race in the jungles of Madagascar, but nothing surely can exceed
the beauty of some old copse in Monmouthshire, deep in the valley, calm,
serene, shaded by the pensile, elegant, autumnal-tinted sprays of the
birch, the ground enamelled with every colored agaric, from the deep
scarlet to pallid white, the gentle gray, and sober brown, and all their
intermediate shadings. Fungi must be considered as an appendage and
ornament of autumn; they are not generally in healthy splendor until
fostered by the evening damps and dews of September, and in this season
no part of the vegetable world can exceed them in elegance of form, and
gentleness of fabrication: but these fragile children of the earth are
beauties of an hour:
“Transient as the morning dew,
They glitter and exhale,”
and must be viewed before advancing age changes all their features.
There is a pale gray fungus (agaricus fimiputris) that may very commonly
be observed in September on the edges of heaps of manure, and in pasture
grounds, most beautifully delicate, almost like colored water just
congealed, trembling in the air from the slightness of its form, its
sober tints softly blending with each other, lined and penciled with an
exactitude and lightness that defy imitation. The verdigris agaric
(agaricus æruginosus) is found under tall hedge-rows, and near shady
banks, and few can exceed it in beauty when just risen from its mossy
bed in all the freshness of morning and of youth, its pale green-blue
head varnished with the moisture of an autumnal day; the veil,
irregularly festooned around its margin, glittering like a circlet of
emeralds and topazes from the reflected colors of the pileus. But it is
by examination alone that the beauties of this despised race can be
perceived, not by a partial and inadequate description.