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