Now
That Little Spot In The Bend Of The River By Means Of These Two Plants Is
Firmly Impressed In
My memory, and is a joy to me whenever I think of it.
The sunshine, the song of the water,
The pleasant green grass, the white
orchis, and the purplish stones were thereby rendered permanent to me.
Such is the wonderful power of plants. To any one who takes a delight in
wild flowers some spot or other of the earth is always becoming
consecrated.
There is, however, something curious about this butterbur. It is related
to the coltsfoot of the arable fields, and the coltsfoot sends up a stalk
without a leaf, and flowers before any green appears. So, too, the
butterbur of the river flowers before its great leaf comes. Nothing is
really common either, for everything is so local that you may spend
years, and in fact a lifetime, in a district and never see a flower
plentiful enough in another. Just where I am staying now the pennywort
grows on every wall attached to the mortar between the cobbles. In some
places you may search the roads in vain for this little plant, which has
this merit, that its rounded leaf presents a fresh green in February. It
does not die away, it appears as green as spring, and pieces of the wall
are ornamented with it as thickly as the iron-headed nails in old doors.
One plant grows out of the hard stem of a hawthorn tree, as if it were a
parasite like the mistletoe; probably there is some crack which the plant
itself has hidden.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 200 of 394
Words from 53754 to 54026
of 105669
