It is, moreover, unfortunate that some of the popular flower-books, owing to the slovenly way in which their descriptions are worded, are of little help; they not only fail to give the needed particulars where there is a real likeness, but often, where there is none, create confusion in the reader's mind by depicting quite dissimilar plants in almost identical terms. In Johns's _Flowers of the Field_ (edition of 1908), for example, the description of hedge-woundwort hardly differs verbally from that of black horehound, and might certainly mislead a novice who was studying hedgerow flowers. The same writer had an exasperating habit of repeatedly stating that various plants are "well distinguished" by certain features, when in fact it is very difficult, from the accounts given by him, to distinguish them at all! An earlier and better writer, Anne Pratt, did make an effort in her _Haunts of the Wild Flowers_ to indicate the chief characteristics, as between the sea-plantain and the sea-arrowgrass, the hemp-agrimony and the valerian; but even she, when some of the labiate flowers were in question, dismissed them, not very helpfully, as "all growing in abundance, but so much alike that it needs a knowledge of botany to distinguish them from each other"! I have known a case where, owing to a picturesque but inaccurate account, in the same book, the Welsh stonecrop (_sedum Forsterianum_) was confused with the marsh St. John's-wort, which has leaves that bear a curious resemblance to those of the _sedum_ tribe. Even writers of botanical handbooks seem not to realize with what difficulties the uninitiated are faced, in regard to certain groups of plants where the several species, though quite distinct, bear a strong family likeness. The chamomiles, for instance, might well receive some special treatment in books; for it is no simple matter to assign their proper names to some four or five of the clan--the true chamomile, the wild chamomile, the corn chamomile, the stinking chamomile, and the "scentless" mayweed, which is _not_ scentless. Many of the umbellifers also are notoriously difficult to identify; and among leguminous plants there is a bewildering similarity between black medick, or "nonsuch," and the lesser clover (_trifolium minus_), which in turn is liable to be confused with the popular hop-clover or with the slender and fairy-like _trifolium filiforme_. "Small examples of _t. minus_," said a well-known botanist, Mr. H. C. Watson, "are so frequently misnamed _t. filiforme_, that I trust only my own eyes for it."[4] "As like as two peas" is a saying which finds fulfilment in these and other examples. [Footnote 4: _Flora of Surrey_, by J. A. Brewer, 1863.]