OLD SONG.
SHOULD any of our unknown companions in these rambles be vegetarians, they will please here take notice that Carrington Moss is in the summer–time a scene of ravenous slaughter such as cannot but be exceedingly painful and shocking to them. It will appear the more repulsive from the high character for innocence ordinarily borne by the destroyers, who are the last beings in the world we should expect to find indulging in personal cruelty, much less acting the part of perfidious sirens. Having given this warning, our friends will of course have only themselves to blame should they persist in following us to the spectacle we are about to describe; and now it only remains to say that the perpetrators of the deeds alluded to are plants! People are apt to look upon plants simply as things that just grow up quietly and inoffensively, open their flowers, love the rain, in due time ripen their seeds, then wither and depart, leaving no more to be recorded of their life and actions than comes of the brief span of the little babe that melts unweaned from its mother’s arms. This is quite to mistake their nature. So far from being uniform, and unmarked by anything active, the lives of plants are full from beginning to end of the most curious and diversified phenomena. Not that they act knowingly, exercising consciousness and volition,—this has been the dream only of a few enthusiasts,—but taking one plant with another, the history of vegetable life is quite a romance, and scarcely inferior in wonderful circumstance to that of animals. So close is the general resemblance of plants to animals, as regards the vital processes and phenomena, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to point out a single fact in connection with the one that has not a counterpart, more or less exact, among the other. The animal world is a repetition in finer workmanship of the vegetable. As for harmlessness and inoffensiveness in plants, these are the very last qualities to be ascribed to them. Pleasant are fragrant flowers, and sweet fruits, and wholesome herbs, but these tell only half the tale. No wild beast of the forest rends with sharper teeth than grow on thorn–trees of different kinds; if the wasp darts its poisoned sting into our flesh, so does the nettle; if snakes’ bites be mortal, so is the venomous juice of the deadly nightshade. Not in the least surprising is it, then, that we should find certain plants indicating a propensity to prey. Animals of lower degree as regards every other disposition of life, why should they not participate in this one? That they do so is plain. Though as a rule, plants feed upon watery and gaseous matters, supplied by the earth and atmosphere, the members of at least two curious tribes, the Sarracenias, and the Droseraceæ or “Sundews,” depend not alone on solutions of manure, or other long–since–decayed organic substances, prepared by chemical action, but collect fresh animal food on their own behalf. The latter include the plants that may be seen engaged in their predatory work upon Carrington Moss.
Before entering upon the consideration of them, we may take the opportunity, furnished by this long word Droseraceæ, of saying a little about the “hard names” so often charged upon botanical science. It is continually asked what need is there to call flowers by those excruciating Latin titles. Why cannot they have plain English names? Why must all our names be
Like the verbum Græcum,
Spermagoraiolekitholakapolides,
Words that should only be said upon holidays,
When one has nothing else to do?
Many make it a ground of abstaining from the study of botany altogether, that the names are so hard to learn, as if every other science and species of knowledge, including history and geography, were not equally full of hard words. But look now at the simple truth of the matter. Very many of the common or “English” names of flowers are in reality their botanical or Latin ones, as fuchsia, laburnum, camellia, geranium, iris, verbena, rhododendron, so that it is not a question of language after all. To be consistent, these names should be left to the professional man, and “English” ones be manufactured in their place; it is clear, however, that they can quite easily be learned and spoken, Latin though they are, and if some can be mastered and found simple enough, of course others can. Besides, what would it advantage us to substitute really English names for them? Nothing would be gained except a synonym, by saying, as we might, “crimson–drop” instead of fuchsia, or “golden–rain” instead of laburnum; while very much would be lost in precision by using a name of obscure and uncertain origin, and upon which even one’s own neighbours might not be agreed, instead of a term fixed by the great leaders in the science of botany, whose judgment all respect, and which is accepted by every nation of the civilised world. It is quite as necessary to call plants by determinate scientific names as to call a certain constellation Orion, and a certain island Spitzbergen. Botanists do not call plants by Latin names simply out of pedantry, or to make their science difficult, but for the sake of clearness and uniformity. None of the botanical names are so hard as it is fancied; the Lancashire botanists in humble life have no trouble with them; the real difficulty is in not caring anything about the objects they are applied to. We do not find those who make so much outcry about the Latin names particularly anxious to learn the English ones either. The English names are not thrown overboard by their Latin companions. All true botanists, so far from rejecting or despising English names, love them and continually use them, substituting the Latin synonyms only when scientific accuracy requires.
Let us now proceed to the sundews, first describing the way to their habitation. All the mosses about Manchester possess these curious plants, but Carrington Moss is the most readily accessible, lying only a little distance south–west of Sale. From the station we go for about a mile in the direction of Ashton–upon–Mersey, then turn up one of the lanes upon the left, and look out for a grove of dark fir–trees, which, being close upon the borders of the moss, is an excellent guide. The edge of the moss is being drained and brought under cultivation; all this part, along with the ditches, must be crossed, and the higher, undisturbed portion ascended, and as soon as we are up here we find the objects of our search. Among the heather are numberless little marshes, filled with pea–green Sphagnum, and containing often a score or two of the sundews, some of them with round leaves, about a third of an inch across, and growing in flat rosettes of half–a–dozen; others, with long and slender leaves that grow erect. Every leaf is set round with bright red hairs, which spread from it like eyelashes, while similar but shorter hairs cover the surface. When the plant is full–grown and healthy, these hairs exude from their points little drops of sticky and limpid fluid, which, glittering like the diamonds of Aurora, show the reason of the poetical English name, sundew. Directly that any little fly or midge comes in contact with the sticky drops, the unfortunate creature is taken captive, just as birds are caught with bird–lime. Held fast in its jewelled trap, the poor prisoner soon expires; and then, either its juices or the gaseous products of the decomposition, appear to be absorbed by the plant, and thus to constitute a portion of its diet. This is rendered the more probable by the experiments of the late Mr. Joseph Knight, of Chelsea, who fed the large American flycatcher, the Dionæa, with fibres of raw beef, and found the plant all the better for its good dinners. Certainly it cannot be asserted positively that the Drosera is nourished by its animal prey, but it is difficult to imagine that so extraordinary and successful an apparatus is given to these plants for the mere purpose of destroying midges, and that the higher purpose of food is not the primary one. On the larger leaves may generally be seen relics of the repast, shrivelled bodies, wings, and legs, reminding one of the picked bones that strew the entrance to the giant’s cavern in the fairy tale. Sundew plants may be kept in a parlour, by planting them in a dishful of green moss, which must be constantly flooded with water, and covering the whole with a glass shade. Exposed to the sunshine, their glittering drops come out abundantly, but the redness of the hairs diminishes sensibly, owing, perhaps, to their being denied their natural prey. The flowers of these singular plants are white, and borne on slender stalks that rise to the height of three or four inches. The roots survive the winter.
Carrington Moss is further remarkable for the profuse growth of that beautiful flower, the Lancashire asphodel, which, at the end of July and the beginning of August, lights it up with flambeaux of bright yellow. Here also grow the Rhyncospora alba, the cranberry, the Andromeda, and the cotton–sedge, all in great abundance; and on the margin, among the ditches, luxuriant grasses peculiar to moorland, and the finest specimens of the purple heather that are anywhere to be seen so near Manchester. The rich sunset–like lustre of this sturdy but graceful plant renders it one of the loveliest ornaments of our country when summer begins to wane into autumn. Branches, gathered when in full bloom, and laid to dry in the shade, retain their freshness of form and pretty colour for many months, and serve very pleasingly to mix with honesty and everlastings for the winter decoration of the chimneypiece. Intermixed with the heather grows the Erica tetralix, or blushing–maiden heath, an exceedingly elegant species, with light pink flowers, collected in dense clusters at the very summit of the stalk. The immediate borders of the moss, and the lanes approaching it, are prolific in curious plants. To go no further, indeed, quite repays a visit. July is the best time. Then the foxgloves lift their magnificent crimson spires, and the purple–tufted vetch trails its light foliage and delicate clusters beneath the woodbines; and the tall bright lotus in coronets of gold, and the meadow–sweet, smelling like hawthorn, make the lady–fern look its greenest, while in the fields alongside stands, in all its pride of yellow and violet, the great parti–coloured dead–nettle, which here grows in luxuriant perfection. Up to the very end of autumn this district is quite a garden to the practical botanist. Where cultivated and uncultivated land adjoin, just as where land and sea come in contact, there is always found the largest variety and plenty, alike of vegetable and of animal life; and nowhere is this more marked than on the borders of Carrington Moss. The cottages near the moss are but few. Tea may be procured nevertheless, if we are content to run the risk of there being no milk, which, like fish by the sea–side, is often a scarce thing even in the heart of the country; but on a pleasant summer evening, when everything else is fair and contenting, he must be a grumbler indeed who would let this spoil his enjoyment. Half a loaf enjoyed with one’s friends, far away in the sweet silence of nature, and a happy walk home afterwards, with loving faces right and left, is better, ten times over, than a luxurious meal got by coming away prematurely. All this part of the country is remarkable also for the luxuriance of its culinary vegetables. The rhubarb is some of the finest grown near Manchester, and it is quite a treat to look at the beans.
Another way to the moss, available for residents at Bowdon, is through Oldfield, and by Seaman’s Moss Bridge, where we cross the Warrington railway, to Sinderland, looking out when thus far for a lane upon the right, bordered first by birch–trees and afterwards by oaks. All these lanes, like those on the Ashton side of the moss, are remarkably rich in wild–flowers and ferns, the latter including the royal fern, or Osmunda, and in early summer show great plenty of the white lychnis, called, from not opening its petals till evening, the vespertina. The pink–flowered lychnis, the “brid–e’en” or “bird’s eye” of the country people, is, like the telegraph office, “open always.” Here we may perceive the use of Latin or botanical names; for “bird’s eye” is applied to many different plants in different parts of England, so that a botanist at a distance who might chance to read these lines could not possibly tell what flower was meant, whereas, in “Lychnis vespertina” there is certainty for all. Whoever is fond of blackberries and wild raspberries would do well to make acquaintance with these pretty lanes; whoever, too, is fond of solitude—a state not fit for all, nor for any man too prolongedly, but a true friend to those who can use it. If we would thoroughly enjoy life, we should never overlook the value of occasional solitude. It is one of the four things which we should get a little of, if possible, every day of our lives, namely, reading, good music, sport with little children, and utter seclusion from the busy world.