Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers. Leo H. Grindon
to these regions very naturally bend their steps, is the place to enquire at for the exact way to the borders of Oakmere; most pleasing, after Rostherne, of the Cheshire waters. For here, in the autumnal sunshine, the soft wind is prone so to waft over the dimpling surface that it becomes covered with lucid ripples, while at the margin, if the “crimson weeds” of the mermaids’ country are not present, there are pretty green ones that “lie like pictures on the sands below,”
With all those bright–hued pebbles that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon.
The borders of Oakmere abound with curious plants. One of the rarest of British grasses, the Calamagrostis stricta, grows here. The locality is also a noted one for the Utricularia minor, though we do not find that interesting fern of the Vale Royal wood, the Lastrea Thelypteris.
Contemplating this lovely mere, whether from Eddisbury, or its own borders, and remembering the many similar waters close by,[10] a group, after that one to which Windermere leads the way, without parallel in our island, it is impossible not to feel curious as to their history. The simple fact appears to be that all, or nearly all the Vale Royal meres are referable to the existence, underneath, of great salt crystal beds which give occupation to the people of Northwich. The surface–soil of the Cheshire salt district consists of a few feet of drift–sand or clay. Below this there is a considerable depth of “New red marl,” and below this there is good reason to believe there is a nearly continuous bed or deposit of the crystal. The “new red sandstone” rock in which these deposits are embedded, is very porous and much jointed. Water is constantly filtering into them from above; the salt crystal, exposed to its action, slowly dissolves into brine, which, as the height is at least a hundred feet above the sea–level, slowly drains away. Then the overlying strata gradually sink; depressions are caused, of less or greater magnitude, and in course of time these become basins of water. Mr. Edw. Hull, the distinguished geologist, considers that should the process go on, the whole of the valley of the Weaver will some day be submerged. Most of the salt sent from Cheshire is prepared from this natural brine. To extract the crystal is not so cheap as to let the water do the mining, then to pump up the solution, and evaporate it.
CHAPTER IV.
CARRINGTON MOSS.
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly:
“ ’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.”
OLD SONG.
SHOULD any of our unknown companions in these rambles be vegetarians, they will please here take notice that Carrington Moss is in the summer–time a scene of ravenous slaughter such as cannot but be exceedingly painful and shocking to them. It will appear the more repulsive from the high character for innocence ordinarily borne by the destroyers, who are the last beings in the world we should expect to find indulging in personal cruelty, much less acting the part of perfidious sirens. Having given this warning, our friends will of course have only themselves to blame should they persist in following us to the spectacle we are about to describe; and now it only remains to say that the perpetrators of the deeds alluded to are plants! People are apt to look upon plants simply as things that just grow up quietly and inoffensively, open their flowers, love the rain, in due time ripen their seeds, then wither and depart, leaving no more to be recorded of their life and actions than comes of the brief span of the little babe that melts unweaned from its mother’s arms. This is quite to mistake their nature. So far from being uniform, and unmarked by anything active, the lives of plants are full from beginning to end of the most curious and diversified phenomena. Not that they act knowingly, exercising consciousness and volition—this has been the dream only of a few enthusiasts—but taking one plant with another, the history of vegetable life is quite a romance, and scarcely inferior in wonderful circumstance to that of animals. So close is the general resemblance of plants to animals, as regards the vital processes and phenomena, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to point out a single fact in connection with the one that has not a counterpart, more or less exact, among the other. The animal world is a repetition in finer workmanship of the vegetable. As for harmlessness and inoffensiveness in plants, these are the very last qualities to be ascribed to them. Pleasant are fragrant flowers, and sweet fruits, and wholesome herbs, but these tell only half the tale. No wild beast of the forest rends with sharper teeth than grow on thorn–trees of different kinds; if the wasp darts its poisoned sting into our flesh, so does the nettle; if snakes’ bites be mortal, so is the venomous juice of the deadly nightshade. Not in the least surprising is it, then, that we should find certain plants indicating a propensity to prey. Animals of lower degree as regards every other disposition of life, why should they not participate in this one? That they do so is plain. Though as a rule, plants feed upon watery and gaseous matters, supplied by the earth and atmosphere, the members of at least two curious tribes, the Sarracenias, and the Droseraceæ or “Sundews,” depend not alone on solutions of manure, or other long–since–decayed organic substances, prepared by chemical action, but collect fresh animal food on their own behalf. The latter include the plants that may be seen engaged in their predatory work upon Carrington Moss.
Before entering upon the consideration of them, we may take the opportunity, furnished by this long word Droseraceæ, of saying a little about the “hard names” so often charged upon botanical science. It is continually asked what need is there to call flowers by those excruciating Latin titles. Why cannot they have plain English names? Why must all our names be
Like the verbum Græcum,
Spermagoraiolekitholakapolides,
Words that should only be said upon holidays,
When one has nothing else to do?
Many make it a ground of abstaining from the study of botany altogether, that the names are so hard to learn, as if every other science and species of knowledge, including history and geography, were not equally full of hard words. But look now at the simple truth of the matter. Very many of the common or “English” names of flowers are in reality their botanical or Latin ones, as fuchsia, laburnum, camellia, geranium, iris, verbena, rhododendron, so that it is not a question of language after all. To be consistent, these names should be left to the professional man, and “English” ones be manufactured in their place; it is clear, however, that they can quite easily be learned and spoken, Latin though they are, and if some can be mastered and found simple enough, of course others can. Besides, what would it advantage us to substitute really English names for them? Nothing would be gained except a synonym, by saying, as we might, “crimson–drop” instead of fuchsia, or “golden–rain” instead of laburnum; while very much would be lost in precision by using a name of obscure and uncertain origin, and upon which even one’s own neighbours might not be agreed, instead of a term fixed by the great leaders in the science of botany, whose judgment all respect, and which is accepted by every nation of the civilised world. It is quite as necessary to call plants by determinate scientific names as to call a certain constellation Orion, and a certain island Spitzbergen. Botanists do not call plants by Latin names simply out of pedantry, or to make their science difficult, but for the sake of clearness and uniformity. None of the botanical names are so hard as it is fancied; the Lancashire botanists in humble life have no trouble with them; the real difficulty is in not caring anything about the objects they are applied to. We do not find those who make so much outcry about the Latin names particularly anxious to learn the English ones either. The English names are not thrown overboard by their Latin companions. All true botanists, so far from rejecting or despising English names, love them and continually use them, substituting the Latin synonyms only when scientific accuracy requires.