the safe conveyance to the camp, in a condition in which
they can be examined, the trying of the eyes in a badly-
lighted, close tent when too windy or too wet to work
out of doors, the impossibility of finding a really dry
case, or, when travelling quickly and lightly, finding
time or opportunity of renewing papers, without which
precaution one is certain to lose the greater part of the
specimens by mould. Insects, too, are very destructive,
in fact all the forces of the atmosphere and of animal
life array themselves against the collector, and it is
decidedly advisable, if time will only allow, to make a
sketch of each individual flower, with an accurate
description written below. However roughly executed,
they will prove a better guide than mouldy and mutilated
vegetables.
Beautiful and characteristic are these flowers,
supplying a sympathetic, cheering background to the
most depressing and dreariest hours of camp life; still,
they never take the big place in one’s life that the forest
trees do. Years ago I read a story in which the trees
played the principal parts, and spending many days
and nights alone under their shade, it was difficult to
refrain from gifting them with human traits and
qualities. Among the principal varieties I knew
were the blue pines, so tall and stately, kindly-
generous in their gifts of shade and shelter, like
large natures appealed to by the weak; the vast
ehenaars, with trunks huge enough to be used as halls,
so full of life that they continue cheerfully and proudly
to put forth, spring after spring, green mantles of
delicately-shaped leaves though their stems are
hollowed, and three hundred years of life have robbed
them of much vigour; the gigantic “ brimij” (Celtis
australis), with roughly scored bark and spreading
foliage capable of sheltering an army; the walnuts and
mulberries, shady and fruitful, ready to aid the hard
life of the people by their bountiful stores of food-stuffs;
the dainty birch brightening by its vivid tints the
sombre, dim mountain sides, and supplying, through
its light bark, a ready-made, efficient wrapping paper.
Poplars, slender to attenuation, thick foliaged and quick
growing, providing speedily a pleasant shade for hot,
dusty tracks, and the Aesculus Indica, with a more delicate
leaf and daintier outline than our representative
horse chestnut, also countless smaller trees, many boasting
handsome flowers: buckthorns, spindle trees, elders,
viburnums, laurels, bays, willows, mountain ashes, hawthorns,
hazels, lording it over the lowlier herbs—as
the fashion is with lesser lights when their grander
companions are absent.
Wandering about among these trees, I took note of
their cranks and quirks, their rough skins and unexpected
excrescences, in the same way as constant companionship
tends to intimate study of character. Their
looks were as readily recognised, and their various
qualities appreciated, as are those of people in whom we
daily depend. The natives knew a good deal about
the properties of the trees and plants, and if one can
identify their names, a great deal may be learnt from
them. They have a thorough appreciation of their
beauty as well as utility, and often their window gardens
in the towns are as bright as a Londoner’s, while
the country folk will wear them or take infinite trouble
to pick bouquets to present to the passing wayfarer.
Blessed is the man with a hobby, thrice blessed if
the hobby happens to be botany! What more could be