44 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
road-sweepings, has quite suddenly produced startling results.
Here have sprung up the Blue Pimpernel (which has apparently
walked four miles across country from Cressing), together with
Wild Mignonette (Reseda lutea), a piece or two of Dwarf Mallow,
Sun Spurge, White Heartsease, and a riot of Annual Mercury,
Many-seeded and Upright Goose-feet and Dyer's Rocket. This
last and the Teasel are always plentiful in Bocking from the
esteem in which they were held by the bay-trade. In St. Peter's
Road a single clump of Melilot has dug itself in on the trench cut
last year for an electric cable. I think it has tramped from
Felsted, four miles away.
In August I found a milfoil in colour as red as the reddest
knapweed, with mottlings deeper still. He was on a sandy
southern bank and perhaps the drought had turned his head.
But this cannot apply to a Cow-mumble of similar hue which I
found against Pattens Wood, Blackmore End, for she was
sheltered from the sun and in a damp locality.
In the next parish to Bocking Miss Vaughan has in her
garden at Rayne (self-sown) a tall species of London Rocket
which she regarded as Sisymbrium Clio, but which Miss Campbell
now identifies as S. Altissimum. In the same garden (raised
from wild seed) are those two lovely little Crane's-bills, striatum
and phaeum; the former is white with delicate mauve veins,
giving the effect of an old-fashioned printed cambric, the latter
the rich deep tint of vintage port.
A visit to Tiptree Heath during a prolonged air-raid at the
end of August produced food for reflection, with the flower
of a heathen race so furiously raging together overhead, and the
flowers of God's field smiling up at him from below. Here was
a riot of Copse Buck-wheat, Sneezewort, Stinking Chamomile,
and Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil all tangled up together in rich
profusion; hard by were flowering rushes and cottony bushes
of Sallow, the nomenclature of which is beyond my feeble
knowledge.
Mention of Bird's-foot reminds one that our simple-minded
forefathers had wonderful powers of observation which led them
to the study of nature and to apt nomenclature. From the
feathered tribe they named Crowfoot, Cuckoo-pint, Wake-robin,
Dove's nest or Columbine, Bird's-eye, Hawk's-beard, Larkspur,