intruder. For myself, I love the spectacle of stone walls breaking out
into flower with red valerian and ivy-leaved toad-flax. The country
people have greeted these flowers with comic and friendly names.
Valerian they call "drunken sailor," and the ivy-leaved toad-flax that
blossoms in a thousand tiny blue butterflies from the stones has (so
prolific it is) been given the nickname of "mother of thousands." I
doubt, however, whether the country people have as many fanciful names
for the flowers as they are represented as having in the books. When
Mr W.H. Hudson first came on winter heliotrope in Cornwall, and was
attracted by its meadow-sweet smell at a season when there were few
other flowers, he was told by a countryman that it was called simply
"weed." Countrymen, if they are asked the name of a flower, will often
say that they do not know, but that they call it so-and-so. A small
boy who was gathering green-stuffs for his rabbits came up and walked
beside me the other day, and, on being shown some goose-grass, and
asked what name he knew it by, said: "I don't know its name; we calls
it 'cleavers.'" In my childhood, I never heard it called by any other
name than "robin-run-the-hedge," and under that name alone am I
attracted by it. "Cleavers" is too reminiscent of a butcher's yard or
of some dull tool. "Goose-grass" at least fills the imagination with
the picture of a bird. But "robin-run-the-hedge" is better, for it is
an image of wild adventure. It will be a pity if the tradition of
picturesque names for flowers is allowed to die. The kidney-vetch, a
long yellow claw of a flower that looks withered even at birth, may
not deserve a prettier name, but at least it is possible to give it an
ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older
name that reminds us that the flower was, a few generations ago, used
to staunch wounds. The other name, it is suggested, had its origin in
the supposed excellence of the plant in curing diseases of the kidney.