These are the marsh marigolds: there were two places where she gathered them, one beside the streamlet flowing through the 'Mash,' a meadow which was almost a water-meadow; and the other inside a withy-bed.

She pulled the 'cat's-tails,' as she learned to call the horse-tails, to see the stem part at the joints; and when the mowing-grass began to grow long, picked the cuckoo-flowers and nibbled the stalk and leaflets to essay the cress-like taste.

In the garden, which was full of old-fashioned shrubs and herbs, she watched the bees busy at the sweet-scented 'honey-plant,' and sometimes peered under the sage-bush to look at the 'effets' that hid there.
By the footpath through the meadows there were now small places where the mowers had tried their new scythes as they came home, a little warm with ale perhaps, from the market town.

They cut a yard or two of grass as they went through the fields, just to get the swing of the scythe and as a hint to the farmer that it was time to begin.

With the first June rose in the hedge the haymaking commenced--the two usually coincide--and then Cicely fluctuated between the haymakers and the mowers, now watching one and now the other.