Traveller’s Joy (Clematis Vitalba).—Locally called Old Man’s Beard, most appropriately, as its curling, silvery masses of seeds hang in wreaths over the hedges. There is a giant trunk growing up from the moat of Merdon Castle.
Meadow Rue (Thalictrum flavum).—Handsome foliage and blossoms, showing much of anthers, growing on the banks of the Itchen canal.
Windflower (Anemone nemorosa).—Smellfoxes, as the villagers’ children inelegantly term this elegant flower, spreading its pearl-white blossom, by means of its creeping root, all over the copses, and blushing purple as the season advances.
Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis).—The white flowers, with yellow eyes, make quite a sheet over the ponds of Cranbury Common, etc. Ivy-leaved (R. hederaceus).—Not so frequent. The ivy-shaped leaves float above, the long fibrous ones go below. When there is lack of moisture, leaves and flower are sometimes so small that it has been supposed to be a different species. It was once in a stagnant pond in Boyatt Lane, but is extinct again.
Buttercup or Crowfoot—
(R. sceleratus) Highly-polished petals, which spangle
(R. acris) the fields and hedges with gold.
(R. repens) All much alike; all haunting
(R. bulbosus) kitchen-gardens and pastures, where the cattle, disliking their taste, leave the stems standing up alone.
Spearwort (R. flammula).—Flower like the others, but with narrow leaves.