[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Percy
Ripley, spoke of a pleasure well known to the botanist—the thrill of coming across a rare flower unexpectedly. May I suggest that this pleasure would be a more common one if lovers of flowers did something to propagate them in likely places ? At any rate, such a pious task would be some set-off to the devastations of plunderers. The beautiful Marsh Gentian (Gentiana pneu- monanthe) grows abundantly on a certain Cheshire common, . and a friend and myself have for some years sowed the seed. on another beautiful common in the neighbourhood. This attempt has had a certain amount of success, and it has flowered regularly in its new home, though it has not yet spread as we hoped it would. This may be accounted for by the conditions. The pneumonanthe is easily choked by grass, and, in its original home, which is used as a golf links, it grows in the semi-rough, the penumbra, as an astromunical friend calls it, where it takes its chance of the scythe on condition that its rivals are mown too, and where it is moreover fairly safe from worse dangers—for the golfer keeps strictly to liusiness. There, in the July sunshine, one may see whole patches where the spring grass and the pink bell-heather are as it were washed
over with a lovely blue.—I am, Sir, &c., F. F.
Previous page
