14 SEPTEMBER 1951, Page 13

Round-Headed Rampion

I wonder whether this beautiful Doivnland campanula with its deep blue terminal head an inch in diameter is as uncommon as is supposed. I found it abundant and growing on stems more than a foot high on Seven Barrows Down between Wantage and Lambourn the other day. It flourished in the company of wild mignonette, clustered harebell, eyebright, rock rose, ladies' bedstraw and Centaurea scabiosa, a funerary offering to the Bronze Age dead, immune Wm the fate that befell Serjeant Troy's planted on Fanny's grave in Far from the Madding Crowd. •