Not till July does the flower open, so that, though they make so much show of foliage, it is months before any colour brightens it.

The red flower comes at the end of a pod, and has a tiny white cross within it; it is welcome, because by August so many of the earlier flowers are fading.
The country folk call it the sod-apple, and say the leaves crushed in the fingers have something of the scent of apple-pie.
Farther up the stream, where a hawthorn bush shelters it, stands a knotted fig-wort with a square stem and many branches, each with small velvety flowers.

If handled, the leaves emit a strong odour, like the leaves of the elder-bush; it is a coarse-growing plant, and occasionally reaches to a height of between four and five feet, with a stem more than half an inch square.

Some ditches are full of it.

By the rushes the long purple spike of the loose-strife rises, and on the mud-banks among the willows there grows a tall plant with bunches of flower, the petals a bright yellow: this is the yellow loose-strife.
Near it is a herb with a much-divided leaf, and curious flowers like small yellow buttons.