Fresh Fields

ower almost as common as the grass; find a square foot of greensward anywhere, and you are pretty sure to find a daisy, probably several of them. Bairnwort-child's flower-it is

ertain human qualities: the daisy has a modest, lowly, unobtrusive look that is very taking. A litt

ssuming C

with that h

h something

e makes f

call this latter "dog daisy." I thought it even coarser, and taller there than with us. Though the commonest of weeds, the "wee, modest, crimson-tippit flower" sticks close at home; it seems to

'st this wil

pride or scru

it then shows more crimson. It shuts up on the approac

fringes to

e suspected that rank dark-green weed there amid the grass under the old apple-trees, where the blue speedwell and cockscombs grew, to be a nettle. But I soon learned that the

I had put it into a hornet's nest, and I knew what the youngster had found. We held our burning fingers in the water, which only aggravated the poison. It is a dark green, rankly growing plant, from one to two feet high, that asks no leave of anybody. It is the police that protects every flower in the hedge. To "pluck the flower of safety from the nettle danger" is a figure of speech that has especial force in this island. The species of our own nettle with which I am best acquainted, the large-leaved Canad

daisies, nettles,

erred to was probably t

wn to a springy, rushy bottom near the river's edge, and which the Scotch call a brae, we reclined upon the grass and listened to the birds, all but the lark new to me, and discussed the flowers growing about. In a wet place the "gillyflower" was growing, suggesting our dentaria, or crinkle-root. This is said to be "the lady's smock all silver-white" of Shakespeare, but these were not white, rather a pale lilac. Near by, upon the ground, was the nest of the meadow pipit, a species of titlark, which my friend would have me believe was the wood-lar

ong nails, will d

England, but does not seem

owers, much like that of our saxifrage, with a delicate perfume. Its stalk has a whorl of leaves

lds. This is one of the plants of which nature is very prodigal in Britain. In places it makes the underwoods as blue as the sky, and its ra

in England I found no so-called wood flower that could not be met with more or less in the fields and along the hedges. The main reason, perhaps, is that the need of shelter is never so great there, neither winter nor summer, as it is here, and the supply of moisture is more uniform a

utus, the medeola, the dicentra, the claytonia, the trilliums, many of the orchids, uvularia, dalibarda, and others. In England, probably, all these plants, if they grew there, would come out into the fields and opens. The wild strawber

y grows undern

berries thrive

y fruit of b

believe, in woods and copses, and the ripened f

vation also. She is chary of new species, but multiplies the old ones endlessly. I did not observe so many varieties of wild flowers as at home, but a great p

as the sta

e on the m

t as there was for the honey-bee, unless the nectar was too much diluted with water in this rainy climate, which was probably the case. In traveling south from Scotland, the foxglove traveled as fast as I did, and I found it just as abundant in the southern counties as in the northern. This is the most beautiful and conspicuous of all the wild flowers I saw,-a spire of large purple bells rising above the ferns and copses and along the hedges everywhere. Among the copses of Surrey and Hants, I saw it five feet high, and amid the rocks of North Wales still higher. We have no conspicuous wild flower that compares with it. It is so showy and abundant that the traveler on the express train cannot miss it; while the pedestrian finds it linin

e deer's

ld bee from the

from Co

ox-glo

e purple bells

s beneath the u

in finch

foxglove, or upon any other stalk or branch, being entirely a ground bird

alls my attention to the

that

ghest peak of

the hour in fo

n of a dull preacher to a 'Drummle drane in a pop;' Anglicè, A drone in a fo

nds and assemblages of deep blue flowers in the grass by the roadside, turning a host of infantile faces up to the sun, often made me pause and admire. It is prettier than the viole

speedwell's

tercup, upon the grave of Carlyle. The tender human and poeti

noticed, was of a much deeper purple there than at home. The purple orchids also were stronger colored, but less graceful and pleasing, than our own. One species which I noticed in June, with habits similar to our purple fringed-orchis, perhaps the pyramidal orchis, had quite a

The feebler light necessitates more leaf surface, and the fewer insects necessitate larger and more showy flowers to attract them and secure cross-fertilization. Blackberry blossoms, so white with us, are a decided pink in England. The same is true of the water-plantain. Our hou

ur hardhack, nine-bark, meadow-sweet, queen of the prairie, and others belong, but surpasses all our species in being sweet-scented,-a suggestion of almonds and cinnamon. I saw much of

for green fodder. I saw not one spear of timothy grass in all my rambles. Though this is a grass of European origin, yet it seems to be quite unknown among English and Scot

he heather, gives that dark hue to the Scotch and English uplands. The heather I did not see in all its glory. It was just coming into bloom when I left, the last of July; but the glimpses I had of it in North Wales, and again in northern Ireland, were most pleasing. It gave a purple border or fringe to the dark rocks (the rocks are never so lightly tinted in this island as ours are) that wa

sfoot invests the plowed lands there, sending up its broad fuzzy leaves as soon as the grain is up, and cove

ecies of sorrel, Rumex acetosa, so common in English fields, and shooting up a stem two feet high, wa

t, already quoted, says of the mullein: "One will come up in solitary glory, but, though it bears hundreds of flowers, many years will elapse before another is seen in the same neighborhood. We used to say, 'There is a mullein coming up in such a place,' much as if we had seen a comet; and its flannel-like leaves and the growth of its spike were duly watched and reported on day by day." I did not catch a glimpse of blue-weed, Bouncing Bet, elecampane, live-for-ever, bladder campion,

th the country life of the people; just as their birds are more familiar, abundant, and vociferous than our songsters, but not so sweet-voiced and plaintiv

of our meadow or mountain lilies; no wood flower so taking to the eye as our painted trillium and lady's-slipper; no bog flower that compares with our calopogon and arethusa, so common in southeastern New England; no brookside flower that equals our jewel-weed; no rock flower before which one would pause with the same feeling of admiration as before our columbine; no violet as striking as our bird's-foot violet; no trailing flower that approaches our matchless arbutus; no fern as delicate as our maiden-hair; no flowering shrub as sweet as our azaleas. In fact, their flora presented a commoner type of beauty, very comely and pleasing, but not so exquisite and surprising as our own. The contrast is well shown in the flowe

ere slightly blunter than ours, and it had no perfume. Indeed, in the matter of sweet-scented flowers, our flora shows by far

l spring-time reigns there, a perennial freshness