A ramble in search of wild-flowers in January would be pretty much
'labour in vain;' at least so far as that one special object was
concerned. I do not mean to say that all nature is dead at that season,
for there are mosses, lichens, and fungi to be found in abundance; but
flowers, in the ordinary meaning of the word, are not to be found,
unless we consider those brilliant frostwork flowers which we sometimes
find as such. It was a season unusually cold for Devonshire, when, with
a merry party of boys and girls, I sallied forth to see how nature
looked decked in her robe of virgin white. Hill and valley were one
sheet of 'innocent snow;' and every twig, leaf, and blade of grass;
every spray of the furze and heath; and every broad, drooping leaf of
that beautiful fern the hart's tongue (_Scolopendrium vulgare_), was
coated with hoar-frost, and sparkling in the rosy sunbeams like the
flowers in a magic garden. At Sherbrook Lake, where a rivulet of clear
water usually flows along the bottom of the ravine down to the sea,
there was now a hard mass of ice, on which our boys rushed for a passing
slide; and above, where the deeper water lies under the shadow of the
brushwood, the frost had been busy performing its frolic feats--
'And see where it has hung th' embroidered banks
With forms so various that no powers of art,
The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene!
Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high
(Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairyland. The crystal drops,
That trickle down the branches, fast congealed,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorned before.
Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sunbeam; there, embossed and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
The likeness of some object seen before.'
From the beautiful beacon cliff--to which we eagerly toil through the
snow, and up and down the slippery hill-sides--we behold the sea as
still and smiling as in summer, and as clearly reflecting the exquisite
blue of the vault above; but each of the many little rills which the
long rains preceding the frost had caused to flow over the face of the
red cliffs, is now a stationary thread of silver, spell-bound by the
enchaining frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them,
_aglets_, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges,
prone to fall to the beach--far, far below--when a thaw releases them
from their present stations. But the air is so very keen that nothing
but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional
spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the
juniors, prevent our stagnating into 'pellucid pillars' ourselves. So
much, then, for our January ramble. The season of which I have now to
speak was most different. After unusual cold, especially after snow, it
is not uncommon to see an early spring appear, and so it was now, as
Spenser says--
'The fields did laugh, the flowers did freshly spring,
The trees did bud, and early blossoms bore;'
and so warm was it one day towards the end of February, and the air so
sweet, that I resolved on having 'Jack' and sallying forth in search of
wild-flowers--not flowers of frostwork, but real spring jewels.
On this excursion, I thought it expedient to take Fanny, which, though a
somewhat stubborn little beast of burden; yet so bent was I on seeing
the sweet spring-like hedges and banks, that I agreed to endure Fanny;
and at the given time on her I mounted, and after much persuasion, got
her under-weigh: the boy George bringing up the rear.
And now on we go, Fanny rather tiresome, and George rather merciless;
for when she _will_ poke her head into the hedge, and stand stock-still
to eat, or, worse still, suddenly push up against a stone-wall, to the
imminent danger of crushing my foot to pieces, he thumps and pushes her
till the echoes in Echo Lane reverberate with the unpoetical sound.
However, on we go by degrees, and find the banks everywhere rich with
fresh springing grass and deep full beds of moss, with every here and
there the pale lemon-tinted petals of the primrose just peeping through
the partial openings in their shrouding mantles of green; and there,
above us, hangs that which I had hoped to find--the catkins of the
hazel, which have been hailed by children for centuries under the names
of 'Pussy-cat's tails,' or 'Baa-lamb's tails;' and a more interesting
flower for examination as we pass onwards we can scarcely have, for its
structure is very peculiar and beautiful. We will gather a good bunch of
these pretty pendent tassel-like clusters; and see! as we break off the
stems, what a shower of gold-dust is scattered over us, and flies in all
directions through the air! So abundant is this yellow pollen beneath
the scales of the catkins, that we shall find, if we place them in our
moss-basket, that the table below them will be coated with it in the
course of an hour or two. The common hazel or nut-tree affords a fine
illustration of the structure of that division of plants to which most
of our common European trees belong, and which, from its including the
oak, is called 'the oak-tribe.' I shall not, however, expatiate on the
hazel, the pride of our old copse-banks, but look beneath its long
slender branches, and there, lurking modestly, do I see that pretty
little yellow flower, the lesser celandine (_Ficaria verna_.) Every one
knows this little early blossom by sight, if not by name. Its root is
formed of numerous clustering tubercles, or oblong knobs, with fibres.
This root is sometimes washed by the rain until these tubercles appear
above ground, when, as Loudon tells us, 'ignorant people have sometimes
been led to fancy that it rained _wheat_.' The celandine has
slightly-branched stems, two or three inches in height, on which grow
alternate stalked heart-shaped leaves, sheathed at the base, where they
sometimes contain one or two knobs like those of the root. The flowers,
which are terminal and solitary, are much like a butter-cup--of a golden
yellow, and exceedingly shining within, and tinged with green on the
outsides. 'After the flowre decays,' says Gerarde, 'there springeth up
a little fine knop or headful of seede.' This head of seed alone is left
by about May to mark where the plant grew; and even this soon dries up
and disappears. Wordsworth has thrown an interest about this plant,
which it would not otherwise have possessed, by his elegant little poem
called _The Lesser Celandine_.
Here and there, also, in the more sheltered spots, we find a blossom or
two of the pretty pink herb Robert (_Geranium Robertianum_), with its
hairy red stems, and divided leaves, and star-shaped blossoms of bright
rose-colour; or an early plant of the ground-ivy (_Glechóma hederácea_)
gemming the ground with its purple, labiate flowers on the sunny bank
beneath the underwood, luring one for a moment to believe that the sweet
purple violets were already come: vain hope! which not only the season
but the place forbids; for though I have found _white_ violets near the
scene of these excursions, in the south of England, yet I believe the
sweet-scented purple do not grow in that neighbourhood. In a late
ramble, there was a spot which I was eager to reach; for there I knew
that I should find
'Chaste snow-drop, venturous harbinger of spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years.'
This pretty well-known flower, sometimes called Fair Maid of February
(_Galanthus Nivalis_), belongs to the same natural order as the daffodil
and narcissus--the _Amaryllideæ_. Gerarde calls it 'the timely flouring
bulbous violet,' and thus graphically describes it: 'It riseth out of
the ground,' says he, 'with two small leaves flat and crested, of an
overworne greene colour, betweene the which riseth up a small and tender
stalk of two hands high; at the top whereof commeth forth of a skinny
hood a small white floure of the bignesse of a violet compact of six
leaves, three bigger and three lesser, tipped at the points with a light
greene; the smaller one fashioned into the vulgar forme of a heart, and
prettily edged about with greene; the other three leaves are longer and
sharp-pointed. The whole floure hangeth downe his head by reason of the
weak footstalk whereon it groweth. The root is small, white, and
bulbous.' It is one of the earliest flowers which appear, and may often
be seen bursting through the snow, the virgin white of its petals by no
means shamed by the lustrous purity of its cold bed. It has no calyx;
six stamens; the filaments short and hair-like; the anthers oblong, with
a bristly point, and one pistil, the style being cylindrical, and longer
than the stamens. The capsule, which is nearly globular, contains three
cells, in which are numerous globular seeds. It is found in orchards,
meadows, and the sides of hedges, and named from two Greek words
signifying 'milk' and 'a flower.'
And now we reach the orchard: but how am I to get in? There is nothing
for it but a scramble up that bank round the root of that old oak, whose
gnarled boles will afford me footing, and it will be easy to descend on
the other side; and so, with a few slips, I contrived to land in safety
among the long, tangled grass, and broken branches of apple-trees,
richly clothed with lichens, mosses, and fungi, in a spot which looked
as if untrodden by human foot for years. But that could not really have
been so, for no doubt the old trees had borne their usual crop of ruddy
apples, which had been duly housed. The value of an apple-orchard in
Devonshire--that land of delicious cider--is not a trifle, and our
farmers do not leave their orchards untrodden and uncared-for. This was,
however, sufficiently wild. But now for my snow-drops: there they wave
in thousands--
'Like pendent flakes of vegetating snow--
The early heralds of the infant year--'
in every stage of beauty, from the hint that a tiny spot of green and
white, bursting through the dark earth, might give, to the
fully-developed blossoms, hanging lightly on its graceful stalks, robed
in its vestal garb of white, and shedding its own peculiar fragrance on
the pure air. I gathered large supplies--enough to make me the envy of
all the lovers of spring-flowers whom I met; enough to fill my
moss-basket, and vases, and glasses without end for myself; and enough
to send a feeling of spring brightness and joy into the hearts of two or
three invalids, to whose sick-rooms I sent some of these pretty
messengers.
Somewhat draggled with the wet grass, and muddied with the slippery
hedge-bank, I at last returned to the lane where I had left Fanny.
However, there was no one but George to notice my appearance, and he was
too much taken up with the basket of fine roots which he had procured
(be sure always to take a trowel and basket with you on such
expeditions), to care how I looked; and, besides, as 'no man is a hero
to his valet,' so no lady is a fine lady to her donkey-boy; and
homewards we turned, threading our way between the overarching trees,
not as yet shewing sign of leaf; but their richly-tinted bark, varied by
mosses and lichens of different hues, and partly mantled with ivy, now
in full berry, looked almost as beautiful, as the sunbeams fell on them,
and the blue sky shone between, as they do in their summer verdure.
On we jogged, Fanny well pleased to be on her homeward course; until at
last, coming to a cross-way which would have either led us straight home
or taken us thither by a little circuit, I, lured by the desire of
seeing whether the daffodils began to shew blossom, resolved on the
latter road, not duly considering that perhaps _she_ had decided on the
former. But so it was; and, notwithstanding sundry stripes, her will
remained unsubdued, as she presently evinced. After we had gone a little
way up a lovely sunny lane--slowly indeed, for she was evidently as
perverse as she could be, yet with much enjoyment on my part--I was
gazing upwards at some delicate white clouds, which a light breeze
wafted across the face of the sky, or watching some bird in its flight,
when suddenly I felt the jogging onwards cease, a slight undulating
motion, and found that my feet were on the ground. Fanny had lain down
in the dust, and I had but to rise as I would from a low chair to be
standing quietly by her side. George dared to grin, and there were two
or three country-people who happened to be passing at the time, who were
convulsed with laughter at my expense--a laughter in which I could not
but heartily join. How much has fancy to do with such things! How grand
is the idea of a camel or an elephant meekly kneeling down to receive or
deposit its load! how dignified I should have felt had I thus descended
from one of those noble animals! whilst this mode of being deposited by
a poor little donkey made us all laugh! Truly, 'there is but a step
between the sublime and the ridiculous;' and my adventure certainly
smacked of the latter. But Fanny had conquered; and, as if with one
stroke to confirm her victory, and to rejoice over it, she suddenly
turned over on her back, cracked the girths of the old saddle, and
rolled over and over in the dust with all four legs up in the air. This
was too much for endurance; so, leaving George to readjust the saddle as
best he might, and bring home our basket of spoils, I turned back, and
sauntered homewards with my bunch of 'timely-flouring bulbous violets'
in my hand. At Kersbrook I discovered a new treasure--one which,
however, I afterwards found to be common, although it was then unknown
to me--and it was some time before I could make out what it was. I took
it for a saxifrage, but could find nothing under that head which exactly
answered to it. It was, I at last discovered, the golden saxifrage
(_Chrysosplenium oppositifolium_) or opposite-leaved sengreen, nearly
allied to the saxifrages, and of the natural order saxifrage, but not
one of them. I found it fringing the side of the brook between the wall
and the water. It grows about four or five inches high, with branched
stems bearing very succulent, kidney-shaped leaves opposite each
other--the radicle leaves on long foot-stalks, whilst those of the
stem-leaves are much shorter. The flowers, which are of a bright
greenish-yellow, grow in small umbels; and the whole plant has a
yellowish hue. The uppermost flower in general bears ten stamens, whilst
the next boasts of but eight each. Its capsules are two-beaked,
one-celled, and two-valved, the seeds numerous and roundish. It is named
from _chrysos_, 'gold,' and _splen_, 'the spleen.' There is another
specimen much like this, of which I have spoken, _Chrysosplenium
alternitifolium_; but it is larger, handsomer, and less common. In the
Vosges this plant is much used--as our own water-cress is in
England--for a salad, under the name of _Cresson de Roche_. There is a
little flower, elegant and singular in appearance, though, as its name
indicates, not one of much splendour, which resembles the golden
saxifrage, in the peculiarity of having a different number of stamens in
its crowning floret from those of the lower ones: this is the green
moschatel (_Adoxa moschatellina), adoxa_ signifying 'inglorious.' The
flowers are pale-green, in a terminal head of five florets, the upper of
which is four-cleft, and has _eight_ stamens, the other being
five-cleft, with _ten_ stamens in each. Its fragile stem and delicate
compound leaves, and the early season at which it blossoms, give
attraction to this little plant, and make it a favourite with me. The
butter-cups are not yet in bloom; but the daisies! Oh, what store of
daisies is on every bank and in every field, and what troops of baby
children, with their little baskets, sitting on the green turf and
picking them! I do love the daisy; and indeed I much fear that I should
have been found taking part with that 'merry troop' of 'ladies decked
with daisies on the plain,' of which we read in Dryden's elegant fable
of _The Flower and the Leaf_, rather than with those wiser and more
renowned who 'chose the leaf':--
'A tuft of daisies on a flowery lay
They saw; and thitherward they bent their way;
To this both knights and dames their homage made,
And due obeisance to the daisy paid.
And then the band of flutes began to play,
To which a lady sung a virelay:
And still at every close she would repeat
The burden of the song--"the daisy is so sweet."'
The structure of the daisy has been noticed in a former paper, and its
appearance needs no description. But there is one other flower which I
meet with that must not escape us, and that is that noble plant, the
butter-bur (_Tussilago petasites_), named from a Greek word signifying a
broad covering. Its leaves, the largest produced by any British plant,
are sometimes from two to three feet across, and form a shelter for
poultry and small animals from the rain. It is a composite flower of the
sub-order _Tubulifloreæ_. The large club-shaped bunch of flower comes
before the leaves are more than partially developed, and are of a
pale-purple tint, and of a most delicious fragrance, not unlike the
heliotrope. When these die off, the magnificent leaves form quite a
beautiful object in the landscape. Artists are fond of introducing them
into the foreground of their sketches, and very ornamental they are; but
they should be careful not to place them where nature never designed
they should grow, among dry hill and rock scenery, or on the
sea-coast--for they are only to be found growing in moist and shadowed
places, and usually in the vicinity of a brook, to which they form a
very apposite adornment.--But here we are at home, and there stands
Fanny at my door with her load of treasure, George having trotted her
home by a shorter cut than that which I had followed; and unless Jack or
Sam can honour me with their company the next time I go flower-picking,
I shall surely, as the Scotch say, 'ride upon shanks naiggie.'