The leaf can be written on with a pencil, the point tracing letters by removing the green colouring where it passes.
Far larger are the leaves of the water-docks; they sometimes attain to immense size.

By the bank the 'wild willow,' or water-betony, with its woody stem, willow-shaped leaves, and pale red flowers, grows thickly.
Across where there is a mud-bank the stout stems of the willow herb are already tall.

They quite cover the shoal, and line the brook like shrubs.

They are the strongest and the most prominent of all the brook plants.

At the end of March or beginning of April the stalks appear a few inches high, and they gradually increase in size, until in July they reach above the waist, and form a thicket by the shore.