But another glance undeceives
you. The wild flowers are new, saving those cosmopolitan seeds (like
nettles and poppies) which the Romans have carried all over Europe,
and the British are now carrying over the world. Every sandy bank
near the sea is covered with the creeping stems of a huge reed, which
grows in summer tall enough to make not only high fences, but
fishing-rods. Poverty (though there is none of what we call poverty
in Britain) fills the little walled court before its cottage with bay
trees and standard figs; while wealth (though there is nothing here
of what we call wealth in Britain) asserts itself uniformly by great
standard magnolias, and rich trailing roses, in full bloom here in
April instead of--as with us--in July. Both on bank and in bog grow
Scorzoneras (dandelions with sword-shaped leaves) of which there are
none in these isles; and every common is ablaze with strange and
lovely flowers. Each dry spot is brilliant with the azure flowers of
a prostrate Lithospermum, so exquisite a plant, that it is a marvel
why we do not see it, as 'spring-bedding,' in every British garden.
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