In May, many of the uplands were covered with the yellow-blooming furze or whins. The black forest, for instance, ’twixt Guildford and Frimley, was a sight worth travelling long miles to look upon; while nothing could excel the fragrance of the perfume shed everywhere around.
The furze lies low to the ground where it has plenty of sunlight, but straggles upwards to seek the light when it grows in the woodlands.
Sweet-scented thistles of every shade—I had almost added “and every shape”—grew plentifully in corners of fields we passed, mostly prickly, but some harmless; lilac, pale pink, dark crimson, and purple; field thistles, milk thistles, melancholy thistles, and nodding thistles.
This latter species I found growing in glorious profusion on the links of Musselburgh, and I quite adorned my caravan with them.
Wherever thistles grow in fields, the tansy is not far off; a showy, yellow, too-hardy flower, without, in my opinion, a vestige of romance about it. Perhaps the sheep think differently, for long after Scottish fields and “baulks” are picked bare, they can always find a pluck of sweet green grass by taking their tongues round a tansy stem.
The yellow meadow vetchling is a beautiful, bright-yellow, pea-like flower, that dearly loves a snug corner under a hedge or bush of furze.
The pink-blossomed geranium-like mallow we all know. It is none the less lovely, however, because common; and here is a hint worth knowing—it looks well in a vase, and will bloom for weeks in water.
But a far more lovely flower, that I first foregathered with, I think, in Yorkshire, is the wild blue geranium, or meadow crane’s-bill. Words alone could not describe its beauty, it must be seen. It mostly grows by the wayside.
Need I even name the corn-marigold, or the blush of the corn-poppies among green growing wheat, or the exquisitely lovely sainfoin, that sheds its crimson beauty over many a southern field; or the blue and charming corn-flower, that delights to bloom amid the ripening grain?
Oh! dear farmer, call it not a weed, hint not at its being a hurt-sickle—rather admire and love it.