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Flowers of the Farm

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<h2> CHAPTER XII</h2> <h3>IN THE LANES</h3> This is the last day that we can spend in looking for wild flowers at Willow Farm. Perhaps some of you already knew something about flowers before this visit. If so, you may have been disappointed that we have not seen some favourite flower of your own. You may think we have passed over many flowers which deserved to be noticed. For that matter I think every wild flower deserves to be noticed; but we certainly should not have time for all. I showed you several plants growing on the walls and roof, because it was interesting to see that quite beautiful flowers, such as the Wallflower and the Houseleek, could grow with very little soil. We looked rather closely at the Clovers and at the Grasses in the hay-field, because these plants are important to the farmer; they are part of his crops. Then, too, we noticed several weeds which do him harm. To-day I am going to take a kind of holiday. I shall show you three flowers, not because they have much to do with the farmer, but because they are great favourites of my own. None of these are very common at Willow Farm, although I know where to find each one. We will go first down the little stony lane which leads from near the foldyard gate to the cottages where the shepherd and the bailiff live. Here we shall find the Alkanet. It is a perennial, and it blossoms here year after year. I only know one other place in the village where it grows. Like some other flowers we have seen, it is not really a native of England. It has a very beautiful blue blossom, a little like the blossom of the Forget-me-not which perhaps you know, but the flower of the Alkanet is of a deeper, richer blue. Here again, as with so many other flowers we have seen, the blossom is formed of the five lobes of a corolla. In the centre of each blue blossom is a small white spot. The blossoms grow in little clusters on a short stalk, and on this stalk there is always one pair of small leaves. The leaves on the main stems of the plant are larger; the lower leaves have stalks, but those on the upper part of the stem are sessile. The leaves are hairy, and so are the stems, which often grow two or three feet high. We saw that the Poppy and the Pimpernel were the only two true scarlet wild flowers of our fields. In the same way there is only one other English wild flower which has such a deep blue blossom as the Alkanet. That is the Borage; and the Borage, like the Alkanet, is not really a native of England. For a fine golden yellow flower I do not know anything which can beat the Dandelion. If we have not seen every wild flower which grows at Willow Farm, we have at any rate seen three which have the deepest and richest colours. Now for my next favourite. This time we go to the shady lane leading from Willow Farm to the church; that is the only place near here where I have found the Lesser Periwinkle. There is also a Larger Periwinkle, very similar to my favourite here, except in size. <table summary="" style="float: left"> <tr align="center"> <td style="border: none"> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/085s.jpg" width-obs="192" height-obs="322" alt="Lesser Periwinkle."> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>Lesser Periwinkle</td> </tr> </table> To find the Periwinkle in full flower we should have to come in spring, but, though it is July now, we shall still find a blossom here and there, I hope. Even in winter we might do so too. The Lesser Periwinkle has a blue flower, but the blue is a pale lilac blue. Here again the petals are really the five spreading lobes of the corolla. There is something curious about these lobes. They are of a peculiar irregular shape that is not easy to describe; they are not exactly pointed, and they are not regular in shape. You could cut the petal of a Buttercup into two equal parts; it would be almost impossible to do this with the lobes of the Periwinkle blossom. The leaves are dark green, glossy and pointed, and they grow in pairs. Often, however, we find two pairs of leaves growing so closely together that they seem to grow in fours. The leaves are evergreen; they do not fade and die in autumn. <table summary="" style="float: right"> <tr align="center"> <td style="border: none"> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/087s.jpg" width-obs="202" height-obs="624" alt="Foxglove."> </tr> <tr align="center"> <td>Foxglove</td> </tr> </table> Some of the Periwinkle stems are erect and are about six inches high; others are creeping. It is only the erect stems which bear flowers; the creeping ones are barren. They do useful work, however, for they form fresh roots, as we have seen the stalks of some other plants do. In this way the whole bank beside the lane has become covered with the pretty plant. The Periwinkle is a comparatively small plant. The last flower--the Foxglove--that we shall see at Willow Farm is quite different. It is a very tall plant. It is generally described as growing from three to five feet high, but I have seen a stem of eight or nine feet. We shall find it growing on the hedgebank in Little Orchard, and it also often grows in woods. Some plants, as we know, are annuals, others are perennials. The Foxglove is neither; it is a biennial--that is a two years' plant. If you sow Foxglove seed you will have no flowers the first year, only a root and a great bunch of leaves. In the second year tall stems which bear the flowers will appear. In the autumn after it has flowered the Foxglove generally dies, though sometimes it may live for another year, or even two. Foxgloves, of course, will reproduce themselves by seed, as annuals and perennials do. The Foxglove is something different from anything that we have seen as yet. The flowers grow on short flower stalks and hang down from the tall stems, a great many on each stem. Here there are no petals, but what we see and admire so much is the bell-shaped corolla, purple-red in colour. This purple bell is spotted with white inside. Bell-shaped is perhaps not a very good description; the flower is more like a large thimble or the finger of a glove. "A glove for a fox--that is the meaning of the name," you perhaps say. No, it has nothing to do with a fox. Many years ago nearly everyone believed in Fairies, and the Fairies were often called the Good Folk or Good People. It is they, and not the fox, who were supposed to use the purple blossoms as a glove. If you say "Folk's Glove" quickly, you will see how easily it comes to sound Foxglove. So our last thought among the flowers is of the Fairies, in whose existence hardly anyone believes to-day.  <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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