difficult indeed to be quite sure. There was no Sowerby, no Bentham, no
botanist friend--no one even to give the common country names; for it is
a curious fact that the country people of the time rarely know the names
put down as the vernacular for flowers in the books.

No one there could tell me the name of the marsh-marigold which grew
thickly in the water-meadows--"A sort of big buttercup," that was all
they knew. Commonest of common plants is the "sauce alone"--in every
hedge, on every bank, the whitish-green leaf is found--yet _I_ could not
make certain of it. If some one tells you a plant, you know it at once
and never forget it, but to learn it from a book is another matter; it
does not at once take root in the mind, it has to be seen several times
before you are satisfied--you waver in your convictions. The leaves were
described as large and heart-shaped, and to remain green (at the ground)
through the winter; but the colour of the flower was omitted, though it
was stated that the petals of the hedge-mustard were yellow. The plant
that seemed to me to be probably "sauce alone" had leaves somewhat
heart-shaped, but so confusing is _partial_ description that I began to
think I had hit on "ramsons" instead of "sauce alone," especially as
ramsons was said to be a very common plant. So it is in some counties,
but, as I afterwards found, there was not a plant of ramsons, or garlic,
throughout the whole of that district. When, some years afterwards, I saw
a white-flowered plant with leaves like the lily of the valley, smelling
of garlic, in the woods of Somerset, I recognised It immediately. The
plants that are really common--common everywhere--are not numerous, and
if you are studying you must be careful to understand that word locally.
My "sauce alone" identification was right; to be right and not certain is
still unsatisfactory.

There shone on the banks white stars among the grass. Petals delicately