Chapter III: Part 3

Trees in full foliage have long been noted as great attractors of humidity, and a young wych elm in full leaf affords a good example of this supposed power; but in the winter of the year, when trees are perfectly denuded, this faculty of creating moisture about them is equally obvious, though not so profusely. A strongly marked instance of this was witnessed by me, when ascending a hill in the month of March. The weather had previously been very fine and dry, and the road in a dusty state; but a fog coming on, an ash tree hanging over the road was dripping with water so copiously, that the road beneath was in a puddle, when the other parts continued dry, and manifested no appearance of humidity. That leaves imbibe moisture by one set of vessels and discharge them by another, is well-known; but these imbibings are never discharged in falling drops: the real mystery was, the fog in its progress was impeded by the boughs of the tree, and gradually collected on the exposed side of them, until it became drops of water, whereas the surrounding country had only a mist flying over it. Thus in fact the tree was no attractor, but a condenser; the gate of a field will in the same manner run down with water on the one side, and be dry on the other; as will a stick, or a post, from the same cause. It is upon this principle that currents of air will be found under trees in summer, when little is perceived in open places; and the under leaves and sprays will be curled and scorched at times, when the parts above are uninjured. The air in its passage being stopped and condensed against the foliage of the tree, it accordingly descends along its surface or front, and escapes at the bottom, where there are no branches or leaves to interrupt its progress. In winter there is little to impede the breeze in its course, and it passes through; consequently at this season the air under a tree is scarcely more sensibly felt than in the adjoining field.

It may be observed, that in the spring of the year the herbage under trees is generally more vivid and luxuriant, than that which is beyond the spread of the branches: this may be occasioned, in some instances, by cattle having harbored there, and the ground becoming in consequence more manured; but it will be found likewise manifestly verdant and flourishing where no such accessory could have enriched it, and is, I apprehend, in general, chiefly owing to the effects of the driving fogs and mists, which cause a frequent drip beneath the tree, not experienced in other places, and thus in a manner keep up a perpetual irrigation and refreshment of the soil, and promote the decomposition of the foliage beneath, which being drawn into the earth by worms, contributes to the verdure by the nutriment they yield.

The foliage of trees and plants, by its amazing profusion, variety, and beauty, must ever have been, as it is now, a subject of admiration and delight, is perhaps full as deserving of notice, and at times even more to be regarded, than the blossoms which accompany it. Let us take only one yard square upon the first verdant ditch-bank in spring, and the variation of form and character which will there be presented may probably exceed general imagination; but the object of all this extraordinary diversity is concealed, with the many other mysteries of creation: yet we have such an ascendant thirst for information upon the causes and nature of the things about us, as to render it an apparent inherent principle of the mind, inducing it to gratitude and love. From information in all the works of Providence arises, as a necessary consequence, admiration, and an exalted sense of supreme intelligence and goodness. Without the desire of knowing the designs and processes of things, no investigation would be bestowed, and we should remain in ignorance of all but the bare facts, and gross perceptions of creation; nor can it be questioned but that the more extensive our acquaintance is with the objects of Providence, in such proportions must our convictions be of his justice, wisdom, and power.

The great utility of foliage, and its agency in accomplishing the requirements of the plant and its products, are well known; and we can form some comprehension of the vast supply that is required by a tree, when we view its foliage, each leaf being employed in receiving and transmitting gases from the air in certain proportions to the plant: these great operations having been effected during the summer months, and this agency of the leaves finished, they fall to the ground, not as a useless encumbrance, but to convey a large portion of fresh soil peculiarly fitted for the nutriment of vegetation. Should they remain in any quantity beneath the tree, they appear to be injurious to the smaller herbage, but they are more generally dispersed as they part from the sprays by the gales of autumn, which whirl them along in crowds to the hedges, trenches, and ditches around: here they accumulate and decay, furnishing, in conjunction with other vegetable decompositions, a very nutritive earth, as is manifest by the wild plants growing in those situations, for notwithstanding all the obstructions of shade, thorns, and briers, they are generally found in great luxuriance or health. This earth in time crumbled by frosts, and washed by rains into the ditches from the banks, becomes accumulated there, and we collect it, compost it with other matters, and use it as a beneficial dressing for our cultivated lands: many of these leaves, however, remain near the tree, and soon communicate their virtues to the herbage: some are consumed by natural consequences, others are attacked by small fungi, which break their surfaces, admit moisture, and facilitate decay; the worm now seizes them as his portion, and having fed upon a part, draws the remainder into the earth, where a rapid separation of the parts takes place, and they are received through the roots into vegetable circulation anew; and thus the beautiful foliage which has been so pleasing during our summer months, supplied the tree with sustenance to increase its magnitude, and all the requisites demanded by its fruits and products—has glowed perhaps with splendor, and been our admiration in the decline of the year, now returns to the soil, not to encumber it, but to administer health and vigor to a new series of vegetation, and circulate in combinations hidden from any human perception.

By a very wise appointment, peculiar propensities have been bestowed upon the vegetable world, greatly assimilating to the tastes and inclinations of the animated tribes. Beasts and insects feed on particular plants, and reject others, and the delight of one is disgusting to another. So, some plants, not having the power of locomotion, will thrive only in certain compounded soils, aspects, and situations, evincing a similar tendency to preference of nourishment as do the sensitive tribes; and some districts, that vary a little in their component parts or position from those adjoining, will present an individual or a race that is not found in another: the common product of the North or of the East is treasured in the Herbarium of the southern or western botanist; we can boast but few, yet we have some of these capricious children of the soil.

The fetid hellebore (helleborus fœtidus) is not a common plant with us, but we find it sparingly in one or two places; and though a plant indigenous to Britain, yet it is not improbable that it has strayed from cultivation, and become naturalized in many of the places in which we now find it. Its uses as an herb of celebrity for some complaints of cattle occasioned its being fostered in many a cottage garden long since erased, where the good wife was the simple doctress of the village, when perhaps mortality was not more extensive than in these days of greater pretension and display. Modern practice yet retains preparations of this herb, but it appears that, from the powerful manner in which they act, great discretion is necessary in their administration. This hellebore is one of our few plants that present us with a dull, unsightly, unpleasing blossom. We have many with a corolla so small as to be little noticed; but this plant, and the fetid iris (iris fœtidissima), produce blossoms, that would generally be considered as darksome and cheerless. There is no part of a vegetable which we usually admire more than its flowers, for that endless variety of colors, shades, forms, and odors, with which they are endowed; yet the utility of the blossom is by no means obvious. Linnæus calls the corolla the arras, the tapestry of the plant; and we are perfectly sensible that the blossom in very many instances is essential in various ways to securing and perfecting the germen; that it often contains the food of multitudes of insects, which feed on the pollen, the honey, or the germen; and that the odor emitted by it leads frequently various creatures to the object in request, and by their agency the fecundation and perfecting of the seeds are often effected: but we are astonished at the elaborate mechanism and splendor of some species, and see the whole race of creation, with the exception of man, utterly regardless of them. Butterflies and other insects will bask on expanded flowers, and frequent their disks, but it is in wantonness, or to feed on the sweet liquors they contain. The carpenter bee,[16] that every summer cuts its little circular patches in such quantities from my roses to line its nest in the old garden door, selects the green leaves only, chiefly from the China, Provence, and damask kinds,[17] passing over the petals of their blossoms as useless. That splendid insect the rose-beetle[18] (cetonia aurata), that beds and bathes in sweetness, will partially eat the flowers of some species of roses, and “lap the nectar they produce;” and a few others nibble a little; but the liliaceous tribes, and other glorious flowers, as far as we know, furnish to insects no supply, but expand, wither, and die, unnoticed but by the eye of man alone. Flowers that are grand, gay, cheerful or beautiful, predominate infinitely over those that are of a sombre hue or gloomy aspect. Employment and occupation were as much the design, as they are found to be essential to the happiness of human life: we are not all constituted to soar in the higher regions of scientific research; our dispositions are as various as our intellects. Horticulture was the first occupation instituted for man, and he cannot pursue a more innocent and harmless employ: we were given “every herb, and every tree upon the face of the earth.” For food, or raiment, the immediate necessities of man, a very few of them are applicable; but we can collect them for amusement, in admiration of their beauty. Without this beauty, they would be no object of research; and man, who is exclusively sensible of its existence, can alone find pleasure in viewing it. The mind that is delighted with such admiration, must be almost insensibly led to an attendant pleasure, the contemplation, the perception of infinite wisdom and power, manifested in the adornment, splendor, and formation, of even the simplest flower of the field. I would not arrogate for man an exclusive right, or make him generally the sole consideration of the beneficence of Providence; but there are influences, which his reason can alone perceive, incitements to good thoughts and worthy actions.

Flowers, in all ages, have been made the representatives of innocence and purity. We decorate the bride, and strew her path with flowers: we present the undefiled blossoms, as a similitude of her beauty and untainted mind; trusting that her destiny through life will be like theirs, grateful and pleasing to all. We scatter them over the shell, the bier, and the earth, when we consign our mortal blossoms to the dust, as emblems of transient joy, fading pleasures, withered hopes; yet rest in sure and certain trust that each in due season will be renewed again. All the writers of antiquity make mention of their uses and application in heathen and pagan ceremonies, whether of the temple, the banquet, or the tomb—the rites, the pleasures, or the sorrows of man; and in concord with the usages of the period, the author of the “Book of Wisdom” says, “Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds and flowers before they wither.” All orders of creation, “every form of creeping things and abominable beasts,” have been, perhaps, at one time or another, by some nation or sect, either the objects of direct worship, or emblems of an invisible sanctity; but though individuals of the vegetable world may have veiled the mysteries, and been rendered sacred to particular deities and purposes, yet in very few instances, we believe, were they made the representatives of a deified object, or been bowed down to with divine honors. The worship of the one true Being could never have been polluted by any symbol suggested by the open flowers and lily-work of the temple.

The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object as a motive: the cottage has its pink, its rose, its polyanthus; the villa, its geranium, its dahlia, and its clematis: we cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining days; but, perhaps, it is the early flowers of spring that always bring with them the greatest degree of pleasure, and our affections seem immediately to expand at the sight of the first opening blossom under the sunny wall, or sheltered bank, however humble its race may be. In the long and sombre months of winter our love of nature, like the buds of vegetation, seems closed and torpid; but, like them, it unfolds and reanimates with the opening year, and we welcome our long-lost associates with a cordiality, that no other season can excite, as friends in a foreign clime. The violet of autumn is greeted with none of the love with which we hail the violet of spring; it is unseasonable, perhaps it brings with it rather a thought of melancholy than of joy; we view it with curiosity, not affection: and thus the late is not like the early rose. It is not intrinsic beauty or splendor that so charms us, for the fair maids of spring cannot compete with the grander matrons of the advanced year; they would be unheeded, perhaps lost, in the rosy bowers of summer and of autumn; no, it is our first meeting with a long- lost friend, the reviving glow of a natural affection, that so warms us at this season: to maturity they give pleasure, as a harbinger of the renewal of life, a signal of awakening nature, or of a higher promise; to youth, they are expanding being, opening years, hilarity and joy; and the child, let loose from the house, riots in the flowery mead, and is

“Monarch of all he surveys.”

There is not a prettier emblem of spring than an infant sporting in the sunny field, with its osier basket wreathed with butter-cups, orchises, and daisies. With summer flowers we seem to live as with our neighbors, in harmony and good-will: but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships.

The amusements and fancies of children, when connected with flowers, are always pleasing, being generally the conceptions of innocent minds unbiassed by artifice or pretence; and their love of them seems to spring from a genuine feeling and admiration, a kind of sympathy with objects as fair as their own untainted minds: and I think that it is early flowers which constitute their first natural playthings; though summer presents a greater number and variety, they are not so fondly selected. We have our daisies strung and wreathed about our dress; our coronals of orchises and primroses; our cowslip balls, &c.; and one application of flowers at this season I have noticed, which, though perhaps it is local, yet it has a remarkably pretty effect, forming for the time one of the gayest little shrubs that can be seen. A small branch or long spray of the white thorn, with all its spines uninjured, is selected; and on these its alternate thorns, a white and a blue violet, plucked from their stalks, are stuck upright in succession, until the thorns are covered, and when placed in a flower-pot of moss, has perfectly the appearance of a beautiful vernal flowering dwarf shrub, and as long as it remains fresh is an object of surprise and delight.

No portion of creation has been resorted to by mankind with more success for the ornament and decoration of their labors than the vegetable world. The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric masks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have all been wrought by the hand of the sculptor, on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and flowers, were selected, even in the wilderness, by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; the rewards of merit, the wreath of the victor, were arboraceous; in later periods, the acanthus, the ivy, the lotus, the vine, the palm, and the oak, flourished under the chisel, or in the loom of the artist; and in modern days, the vegetable world affords the almost exclusive decorations of ingenuity and art. The cultivation of flowers is of all the amusements of mankind the one to be selected and approved as the most innocent in itself, and most perfectly devoid of injury or annoyance to others; the employment is not only conducive to health and peace of mind, but probably more good-will has arisen, and friendships been founded by the intercourse and communication connected with this pursuit than from any other whatsoever: the pleasures, the ecstasies of the horticulturist are harmless and pure; a streak, a tint, a shade, becomes his triumph, which though often obtained by chance, are secured alone by morning care, by evening caution, and the vigilance of days: an employ which, in its various grades, excludes neither the opulent nor the indigent, and teeming with boundless variety, affords an unceasing excitement to emulation without contempt or ill-will.

The bouquet may be an exile now; but the revolutions of fashion will surely return this beautiful ornament to favor again. With us the nosegay yet retains its station as a decoration to our Sunday beaux; but at our spring clubs and associations it becomes an essential, indispensable appointment; a little of the spirit of rivalry seeming to animate our youths in the choice and magnitude of this adornment. The superb spike of a Brompton, or a ten weeks’ stock, long cherished in some sheltered corner for the occasion, surrounded by all the gaiety the garden can afford, till it presents a very bush of flowers, forms the appendage of their bosoms, and, with the gay knots in their hats, their best garments, and the sprightly hilarity of their looks, constitutes a pleasing village scene, and gives an hour of unencumbered felicity to common man and rural life, not yet disturbed by refinement and taste.

“Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?”

And yet the shivering of the aspen, or poplar tree (populus tremula), in the breeze will give us the sensation of coldness, and communicate an involuntary shuddering. The construction of the foliage of this tree is peculiarly adapted for motion: a broad leaf placed upon a long footstalk, so flexile, as scarcely to be able to support the leaf in an upright posture: the upper part of this stalk, on which the play or action seems mainly to depend, is contrary to the nature of footstalks in general, being perfectly flattened, and, as an eminent botanist and esteemed gentleman, Dr. I. Stokes, observes, is placed at a right angle with the leaf, being thus peculiarly fitted to receive the impulse of every wind that blows. This stalk is furnished with three strong nerves, placed parallel, and acting in unison with each other; but towards the base the stalk becomes round, and then the nerves assume a triangular form, and constitute three distinct supports and counteractions to each other’s motions. I know no petiole with a similar conformation, or better calculated for the vibration of a leaf. The leaf-stalks of plants are very curious constructions; and the nerves and vessels contained in them, which are the vehicles of a large portion of that nourishment which plants receive through their foliage from the air, seem in general differently placed, and fitted for variety of operation. The poplar is a tree that occasions at times a great deal of trouble in our pasture lands, by the tendency which it has to extend its roots, and throw out suckers. Three or four of this species in a hedge-row, bounding a meadow in my occupation, oblige me every year that the field is mowed, by their prolificacy, to send a man with his stock-ax to remove their numerous offspringing; a mere temporary expedient, tending rather to increase the complaint, as eradication by trenching with the spade can alone effectually check the encroachments of runners so tenacious of life, and rapid in growth.

The dyer’s broom[19] (genista tinctoria) abounds with us, and becomes a perfect encumbrance in our clay-land pastures. It is seldom eaten by cattle, except in cases of great necessity, and remains untouched, if other food be obtainable, giving a deceitful appearance of verdure to a naked pasture. It yet retains a place in some of our dispensatories; but its medicinal virtues are probably never made trial of in modern practice, the lenient assuasives of our forefathers seeming unequal to contention with the constitutions of these days. I know not any use to which it is applicable but for the dyer. Our poorer people a few years ago used to collect it by cartloads, about the month of July; and the season of “woodwaxen” was a little harvest to them: but it interfered greatly with our haymaking. Women could gain each about two shillings a day, clear of all expenses, by gathering it; but they complained that it was a very hard and laborious occupation, the plant being drawn up by the roots, which are strongly interwoven in the soil. The dyer gave them eight-pence for a hundred weight; but I fear the amount was greatly enhanced by the dishonest practice of watering the load, for the specious purpose of keeping it green; and the old woodwaxers tell me, that, without the increase of weight which the water gave the article, they should have had but little reward for their labor. Greediness here, however, as in most other cases, ruined the trade, the plant becoming so injured and stinted by repeated pullings, as to be in these parts no longer an object worth seeking for; and our farmers rather discountenance the custom, as the “green-weed” preserves and shelters at its roots a considerable quantity of coarse herbage, which in the winter and spring months is of great importance to the young cattle browsing in the pastures. The use of this dyer’s broom is to prepare woollen cloths for the reception of another color. It communicates to the article a dull yellow, which will then, by being dipped in another liquor or composition, according to the shade required, receive a green hue. Vegetable filaments, cotton, flax, &c., are very differently formed from those threads afforded by animals, as silk and wool, and are differently disposed to receive colors. The dye that will give a fine color to the one, is perhaps rejected by the other; and this plant is rarely or never used by the dyer for cotton articles. That certain natural productions receive and retain, and others reject or soon part with artificial colorings, are in some cases in consequence of the nature of the substance, and in others by reason of the conformation of the fibre; but any examination of this kind would only occasion a tedious discussion and remain very obscure at last. We find certain effects produced and reason upon them, but so small are the parts operated upon, minute the agents, and equivocal the connexion, that we can do little more than theorize upon the subject; but perhaps I may slightly instance the difference existing in the fibre of flax and silk. The parts which compose the filaments of the former are generally considered as being flat and flaky, whereas those of the latter are tubular and round: this conformation renders silk so soft to the touch, and refracting more perfectly the rays of light, occasions much of its lustre, and the brilliancy of its hues. Perhaps we have no art or trade less confined within the trammels of formulæ than that of the dyer; every professor appearing to have his own methods of acquiring particular tints and shades, guided often in his proportions by that mutable sense, the taste, and regulating the temperature of his compositions, not by the thermometer, but by the feeling of the hand;—and so capricious are these tests, so different the sensations of the operator, or the variable influences of solar light, that success on one day does not insure a similar result on another.

Color is probably only reflected light; but by what means the absorption of oxygen increases the lustre is not quite obvious—yet the power of the sun’s rays, in augmenting the intensity of the hues of many things, is well known: there is an admirable green color for foliage, to be obtained by the union of the light Prussian blue with the dark gamboge; but I could never acquire this clear and lustrous, without compounding it in the light of the sun. As the young artist will find this a most useful pigment, I may in addition say, that a small bit of the light Prussian, with three or four times the quantity of gamboge, must be laid upon the pallet, or in the saucer, and with a drop or two of water, only enough to make it work easily, be most thoroughly united and incorporated by the finger, with the sun shining upon the mixture, adding more gamboge repeatedly during the operation, until the blue is subdued and a clear green produced; but if a tedious operation, yet perseverance will ultimately produce a very brilliant permanent green.

We have our walls in many places here decorated with most of the varieties of the great snapdragon (antirrhinum majus); the white, the pink, and the common: and that beautiful deviation, with a white tube and crimson termination, is slowly wandering from the garden, and mixing with its congeners. It has not, perhaps, been generally observed, that the flowers of this plant, “bull-dogs,” as the boys call them, are perfect insect traps; multitudes of small creatures seek an entrance into the corolla through the closed lips, which upon a slight pressure yield a passage, attracted by the sweet liquor that is found at the base of the germen; but when so admitted, there is no return, the lips are closed, and all advance to them is impeded by a dense thicket of woolly matter, which invests the mouth of the lower jaw—

“Smooth lies the road to Pluto’s gloomy shade;
But ’tis a long, unconquerable pain,
To climb to these ethereal realms again.”

But this snapdragon is more merciful than most of our insect traps. The creature receives no injury when in confinement; but, having consumed the nectareous liquor, and finding no egress, breaks from its dungeon by gnawing a hole at the base of the tube, and returns to liberty and light. The extraordinary manner in which the corolla of this plant is formed, the elastic force with which the lower limb closes and fits upon the projection of the upper, manifest the obvious design in the great Architect, “whose hands bended the rainbow;” and the insects are probably the destined agents whereby the germen is impregnated, for as soon as this is effected, the limbs become flaccid, lose their elasticity, are no longer a place of confinement, but open for the escape of any thing that might have entered. The little black pismire is a common plunderer of this honey.

It is a perplexing matter to reconcile our feelings to the rigor, and our reason to the necessity, of some plants being made the instrument of destruction to the insect world. Of British plants we have only a few so constructed, which, having clammy joints and calyxes, entangle them to death. The sun-dew (droseræ) destroys in a different manner, yet kills them without torture. But we have one plant in our gardens, a native of North America, than which none can be more cruelly destructive of animal life, the dogsbane (apocynum androsæmifolium),[20] which is generally conducive to the death of every fly that settles upon it. Allured by the honey on the nectary of the expanded blossom, the instant the trunk is protruded to feed on it, the filaments close, and, catching the fly by the extremity of its proboscis, detain the poor prisoner writhing in protracted struggles till released by death, a death apparently occasioned by exhaustion alone; the filaments then relax, and the body falls to the ground. The plant will at times be dusky from the numbers of imprisoned wretches. This elastic action of the filaments may be conducive to the fertilizing of the seed by scattering the pollen from the anthers, as is the case with the berberry; but we are not sensible that the destruction of the creatures which excite the action is in any way essential to the wants or perfection of the plant, and our ignorance favors the idea of a wanton cruelty in the herb; but how little of the causes and motives of action of created things do we know! and it must be unlimitable arrogance alone that could question the wisdom of the mechanism of him “that judgeth rightly;” the operations of a simple plant confound and humble us, and, like the hand-writing on the wall, though seen by many, can be explained but by ONE.[21]

The different manner in which vegetables exert their organic powers to effect the destruction of insects, is not perhaps unworthy of a brief notice; some, as those above mentioned, accomplish it by means of elastic or irritable actions, adhesive substances, and so forth; but we have another plant in our green-houses, the glaucous birthwort (aristol. glauca), that effects these purposes without any of these means, but principally by conformation. The whole internal surface of the tubular flower is beset with minute strong spines, pointing downwards; these present no impediment to the descent of the animal which may seek for the sweet liquor lodged upon the nectarium at the base of the blossom, nor is there any obstruction provided for its return by means of valves or contractions, the tube remaining open; but the creature cannot crawl up by reason of the inverted spines, and to prevent its escape by flying up the tube, the flower makes an extraordinary curve, bending up like a horn, so that any winged creature must be beaten back by striking against the roof of this neck as often as it attempts to mount, and falling back to the bulbous prison at the base of the flower, dies by confinement and starvation, and there we find them: a certain number of these perishing, the blossom fades and drops off.

All the varieties of this snapdragon have the power of maintaining a state of vegetation in great droughts, when most other plants yield to the influence of the weather; and it is the more remarkable in these plants, as the places in which they chiefly delight to vegetate are particularly exposed to the influence of the sun. In that hot dry summer of 1825, when vegetation was in general burned up and withered away, yet did this plant continue to exist on parched walls, and draw nutriment from sources apparently unable to afford it; not in full vigor certainly, but in a state of verdure beyond any of its associates. The common burnet (poterium sanguisorba) of our pastures, in a remarkable degree, likewise possesses this faculty of preserving its verdure, and flourishing amid surrounding aridity and exhaustion. It is probable that these plants, and some others, have the power of imbibing that insensible moisture, which arises from the earth even in the driest weather, or from the air which passes over them. The immense evaporation proceeding from the earth, even in the hottest season, supplies the air constantly with moisture; and as every square foot of this element can sustain eleven grains of water, an abundant provision is made for every demand. We can do little more than note these facts: to attempt to reason upon the causes, why particular plants are endowed with peculiar faculties, would be mere idleness; yet, in remarking this, we cannot pass over the conviction, that the continual escape of moisture from one body, and its imbibition by another, this unremitting motion and circulation of matter, are parts of that wonderful ordination, whereby the beneficence and wisdom of Providence are manifested: without the agency of evaporation, not dwelling on the infinitude of effects and results, no vegetation could exist, no animal life continue.

The ivy[22] (hedera helix), the dark-looking ivy, almost covers with its 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.