Flower Thieves
A very melancholy tale of the disappearance of wild flowers comes . from Staffordshire, and that from the region of the charming Masefield sanctuary which was given largely to protect wild flowers, while encour- aging urban visitors. Like Tom Tulliver who was fond of birds, that is of throwing stones at them, many people, especially from the town, are so fond of flowers, and especially ferns, that they must dig them up, roots and all, branch and all. A schoolmaster, retired to the district, could not find a single primrose root. In the damp places of the Dove valley the snakes-head fritillary, once plentiful, is extinct. The spotted orchis, not at all a rare species in general, is almost extinct in Dovedale, and he now knows of only one place where a few Lent lilies are left. Finally the tale is told of a Staffordshire young woman who had never seen a cowslip. Similar laments are being heard in the Lake counties, especially in regard to Lent lilies. It is, I think, an undoubted fact that dwellers in the north are much more ruthless eradicators than those in the south. Is the reason the greater appreciation of flowers in districts where they are fewer ? One of the comparatively few flowers that I know to be in danger in the south is the so-called Pasque flower, though some of the orchises are becoming rarer. Wild flowers perhaps need sanctuary even more insistently than birds.
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