"Melilotus officinalis," a graceful yellow pea-flower. When this first appeared it was quite a stranger in these parts, but afterwards for several years it was continually turning up in different corners of the garden, indeed even in 1911, twenty-six years since its first visit, I found a stray specimen.
"Ranunculus arvensis," a weak-looking buttercup with curious rough seed vessels.
"Scandix Pecten-Veneris," an ordinary unattractive umbelliferous plant, but with extraordinary long beaks to the fruit, which are supposed to be like the teeth of a comb. Both of these are I believe common in other parts of the country, but they are unusual here.
"Poa nemoralis," a stranger grass of elegant growth, came one year in the rougher part of a rock-border. It was made welcome and kindly treated, but though allowed to follow its own devices and though several seedlings sprang up round it, they were all gone in a year or two. A rarer grass still, "Setaria glauca," once turned up in a cucumber frame.
In 1907, a seedling fig came up close to the wall of the house. It has now (1912) several shoots about eight feet long. The same year another seedling fig appeared in the kitchen garden, and that too I have transplanted to a warm corner of the house-wall, where it has made a nice bush.
For several years we have found seedling tomatoes growing in the kitchen garden, and in 1911 we gathered seven pounds of green tomatoes from two plants to make into jam.
Old Church.