Country Rambles, and Manchester Walks and Wild Flowers. Leo H. Grindon
the way to their habitation. All the mosses about Manchester possess these curious plants, but Carrington Moss is the most readily accessible, lying only a little distance south–west of Sale. From the station we go for about a mile in the direction of Ashton–upon–Mersey, then turn up one of the lanes upon the left, and look out for a grove of dark fir–trees, which, being close upon the borders of the moss, is an excellent guide. The edge of the moss is being drained and brought under cultivation; all this part, along with the ditches, must be crossed, and the higher, undisturbed portion ascended, and as soon as we are up here we find the objects of our search. Among the heather are numberless little marshes, filled with pea–green Sphagnum, and containing often a score or two of the sundews, some of them with round leaves, about a third of an inch across, and growing in flat rosettes of half–a–dozen; others, with long and slender leaves that grow erect. Every leaf is set round with bright red hairs, which spread from it like eyelashes, while similar but shorter hairs cover the surface. When the plant is full–grown and healthy, these hairs exude from their points little drops of sticky and limpid fluid, which, glittering like the diamonds of Aurora, show the reason of the poetical English name, sundew. Directly that any little fly or midge comes in contact with the sticky drops, the unfortunate creature is taken captive, just as birds are caught with bird–lime. Held fast in its jewelled trap, the poor prisoner soon expires; and then, either its juices or the gaseous products of the decomposition, appear to be absorbed by the plant, and thus to constitute a portion of its diet. This is rendered the more probable by the experiments of the late Mr. Joseph Knight, of Chelsea, who fed the large American flycatcher, the Dionæa, with fibres of raw beef, and found the plant all the better for its good dinners. Certainly it cannot be asserted positively that the Drosera is nourished by its animal prey, but it is difficult to imagine that so extraordinary and successful an apparatus is given to these plants for the mere purpose of destroying midges, and that the higher purpose of food is not the primary one. On the larger leaves may generally be seen relics of the repast, shrivelled bodies, wings, and legs, reminding one of the picked bones that strew the entrance to the giant’s cavern in the fairy tale. Sundew plants may be kept in a parlour, by planting them in a dishful of green moss, which must be constantly flooded with water, and covering the whole with a glass shade. Exposed to the sunshine, their glittering drops come out abundantly, but the redness of the hairs diminishes sensibly, owing, perhaps, to their being denied their natural prey. The flowers of these singular plants are white, and borne on slender stalks that rise to the height of three or four inches. The roots survive the winter.
Carrington Moss is further remarkable for the profuse growth of that beautiful flower, the Lancashire asphodel, which, at the end of July and the beginning of August, lights it up with flambeaux of bright yellow. Here also grow the Rhyncospora alba, the cranberry, the Andromeda, and the cotton–sedge, all in great abundance; and on the margin, among the ditches, luxuriant grasses peculiar to moorland, and the finest specimens of the purple heather that are anywhere to be seen so near Manchester. The rich sunset–like lustre of this sturdy but graceful plant renders it one of the loveliest ornaments of our country when summer begins to wane into autumn. Branches, gathered when in full bloom, and laid to dry in the shade, retain their freshness of form and pretty colour for many months, and serve very pleasingly to mix with honesty and everlastings for the winter decoration of the chimneypiece. Intermixed with the heather grows the Erica tetralix, or blushing–maiden heath, an exceedingly elegant species, with light pink flowers, collected in dense clusters at the very summit of the stalk. The immediate borders of the moss, and the lanes approaching it, are prolific in curious plants. To go no further, indeed, quite repays a visit. July is the best time. Then the foxgloves lift their magnificent crimson spires, and the purple–tufted vetch trails its light foliage and delicate clusters beneath the woodbines; and the tall bright lotus in coronets of gold, and the meadow–sweet, smelling like hawthorn, make the lady–fern look its greenest, while in the fields alongside stands, in all its pride of yellow and violet, the great parti–coloured dead–nettle, which here grows in luxuriant perfection. Up to the very end of autumn this district is quite a garden to the practical botanist. Where cultivated and uncultivated land adjoin, just as where land and sea come in contact, there is always found the largest variety and plenty, alike of vegetable and of animal life; and nowhere is this more marked than on the borders of Carrington Moss. The cottages near the moss are but few. Tea may be procured nevertheless, if we are content to run the risk of there being no milk, which, like fish by the sea–side, is often a scarce thing even in the heart of the country; but on a pleasant summer evening, when everything else is fair and contenting, he must be a grumbler indeed who would let this spoil his enjoyment. Half a loaf enjoyed with one’s friends, far away in the sweet silence of nature, and a happy walk home afterwards, with loving faces right and left, is better, ten times over, than a luxurious meal got by coming away prematurely. All this part of the country is remarkable also for the luxuriance of its culinary vegetables. The rhubarb is some of the finest grown near Manchester, and it is quite a treat to look at the beans.
Another way to the moss, available for residents at Bowdon, is through Oldfield, and by Seaman’s Moss Bridge, where we cross the Warrington railway, to Sinderland, looking out when thus far for a lane upon the right, bordered first by birch–trees and afterwards by oaks. All these lanes, like those on the Ashton side of the moss, are remarkably rich in wild–flowers and ferns, the latter including the royal fern, or Osmunda, and in early summer show great plenty of the white lychnis, called, from not opening its petals till evening, the vespertina. The pink–flowered lychnis, the “brid–e’en” or “bird’s eye” of the country people, is, like the telegraph office, “open always.” Here we may perceive the use of Latin or botanical names; for “bird’s eye” is applied to many different plants in different parts of England, so that a botanist at a distance who might chance to read these lines could not possibly tell what flower was meant, whereas, in “Lychnis vespertina” there is certainty for all. Whoever is fond of blackberries and wild raspberries would do well to make acquaintance with these pretty lanes; whoever, too, is fond of solitude—a state not fit for all, nor for any man too prolongedly, but a true friend to those who can use it. If we would thoroughly enjoy life, we should never overlook the value of occasional solitude. It is one of the four things which we should get a little of, if possible, every day of our lives, namely, reading, good music, sport with little children, and utter seclusion from the busy world.
The number of mosses and moors in the neighbourhood of Manchester makes it interesting—as in the case of the Cheshire meres, to know something of their origin. The wonderful discoveries of geology, with regard to the crust of the earth, and the successive deposition of the strata of which it is composed, claim our attention scarcely more than the history of the surface, which has undergone changes quite as momentous to the welfare of man, and no part of that history is more curious, perhaps, than that of the mosses. Wherever a moss now extends in wet and dreary waste, it would seem that there was once a plain or expanse of tolerably dry land, more or less plentifully covered with trees and underwood, but subject, by reason of the depressed level, to frequent inundation, just as we see the fields at Sale and Stretford flooded every now and then at the present day. The falling of the older and weaker trees, in consequence of the long–continued wetness, and the want of a steady and complete outlet for the accumulated waters, would soon cause the place to assume the character of a marsh—neither land nor lake—and now semi–amphibious plants would not be slow to spring up, for wherever such conditions of surface are exchanged for dry ones, plants of that nature appear as if by magic. The morass thus formed and occupied, would in a single season become knee–deep in the very same kind of mixture as that which now forms the outer skin of Carrington Moss, viz., heather of different kinds, cotton–sedges, and bog–moss. Every successive year the original mass of roots and stems would be left deeper and deeper beneath by the new and upward growth of the vegetation above; till at last, saturated with wet, and pressed by the weight of the superincumbent matter, it would acquire the compact form which is now called “peat.” The original moisture of the place, instead of diminishing, would be incessantly reinforced from the clouds, and the lapse of a few centuries would pile up on the surface of the once dry ground, a heap many yards in vertical thickness of half–decayed, half–living heath and moss, with sundews, cotton–sedges, and asphodels on the top. The branches of the