Wild flowers and where they grow . by boulders, bossed with gray-green lichens. Here andthere out of the short grass showed ledges, whose fissureswere adorned with mosses in helmet and hood of scarlet; andaround their warm basses ripened the largest checkerberries,and sometimes a few bunches of strawberries, of flavor mostdelectable—the condensed aroma of strawberry was in them. No monotony in that pasture, with its ups and downs, itsslopes and hollows. It was sterile in some parts, luxuriantin others; open, shaded, dry, wet; a warm wood at the east,and a cold one at the north ; home of many w
Wild flowers and where they grow . by boulders, bossed with gray-green lichens. Here andthere out of the short grass showed ledges, whose fissureswere adorned with mosses in helmet and hood of scarlet; andaround their warm basses ripened the largest checkerberries,and sometimes a few bunches of strawberries, of flavor mostdelectable—the condensed aroma of strawberry was in them. No monotony in that pasture, with its ups and downs, itsslopes and hollows. It was sterile in some parts, luxuriantin others; open, shaded, dry, wet; a warm wood at the east,and a cold one at the north ; home of many wild flowers. And there was one exotic, a sweet briar — the eglantine ofthe poets. It was like a bit of romance to see it there; totouch the leaves and make them give out that bewitchingfragrance; and each June to gather the lovely single roses,whose perfume is the purest attar, and whose petals are sodeftly tipped and tinted with carmine. How it came there noone knew ; but we liked to think that the young wife of the Zp£ .... EGLANTINE. THE PASTURE. 83 settler had brought a slip from her home in the old colony,and set it out in the clearing in the wilderness. The pasture had several small bogs where were bulrushesand flags, and the sphagnum moss was so rank that you sankinto it ankle deep. Yellow water lilies grew in two of them,and button-balls, and the cotton-grass, whose airy tufts causedthe places to look in September as if a flurry of snow hadfallen. It had reedy pools between little grassy hummocksskirted with hardhack, and there bloomed the exquisite flowersof the blue flag. And there was a lovely, cool green hollow,which had a season of special beauty when the crimson whorlsof the sheep-laurel (lamb-kill) made it like a rosy festivaltime. A grassy road wound from the pasture bars, by many aturn, away down to the swamp from whence the wintersupply of wood was drawn. Always under the shade of treesand through pleasant places went this sled-path, bordered byberry-spot
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1882
