urple Orchis, or Cuckoo Flowers; cornfields
blazing with Poppies; woods carpeted with Bluebells, Anemones,
Primroses, and Forget-me-nots; commons with the yellow Lady's Bedstraw,
Harebells, and the sweet Thyme; marshy places with the yellow stars of
the Bog Asphodel, the Sun-dew sparkling with diamonds, Ragged Robin, the
beautifully fringed petals of the Buckbean, the lovely little Bog
Pimpernel, or the feathery tufts of Cotton Grass; hedgerows with
Hawthorn and Traveller's Joy, Wild Rose and Honeysuckle, while
underneath are the curious leaves and orange fruit of the Lords and
Ladies, the snowy stars of the Stitchwort, Succory, Yarrow, and several
kinds of Violets; while all along the banks of streams are the tall red
spikes of the Loosestrife, the Hemp Agrimony, Water Groundsel, Sedges,
Bulrushes, Flowering Rush, Sweet Flag, etc.

Many other sweet names will also at once occur to us--Snowdrops,
Daffodils and Hearts-ease, Lady's Mantles and Lady's Tresses, Eyebright,
Milkwort, Foxgloves, Herb Roberts, Geraniums, and among rarer species,
at least in England, Columbines and Lilies.

But Nature does not provide delights for the eye only. The other senses
are not forgotten. A thousand sounds--many delightful in themselves, and
all by association--songs of birds, hum of insects, rustle of leaves,
ripple of water, seem to fill the air.

Flowers again are sweet, as well as lovely. The scent of pine woods,
which is said to be very healthy, is certainly delicious, and the effect
of Woodland scenery is good for the mind as well as for the body.

"Resting quietly under an ash tree, with the scent of flowers, and the
odour of green buds and leaves, a ray of sunlight yonder lighting up the
lichen and the moss on the oak trunk, a gentle air stirring in the
branches above, giving glimpses of fleecy clouds sailing in the ether,
there comes into the mind a feeling of intense joy in the simple fact of
living."[24]

The wonderful phenomenon of phosphorescence is not a special gift to the
animal kingdom. Henry O. Forbes describes a forest in Sumatra: "The stem
of every tree blinked with a pale greenish-white light which undulated
also across the surface of the ground like moonlight coming and going
behind the clouds, from a minute thread-like fungus invisible in the
day-time to the unassisted eye; and here and there thick dumpy mushrooms
displayed a sharp, clear dome of light, whose intensity never varied or
changed till the break of