At the side of a small plantation that borders the heath there thrives the alien small-flowered balsam, which, like some of its handsomer kinsfolk, seems to be quickly extending its range. Near the same spot I noticed several years ago, on a winter day, a patch of large soft pale-green leaves, which at a hasty glance I took to be those of the scented colt's-foot; but when I passed that way in the following spring I was surprised to see that several long stalks, bearing bright yellow composite flowers, had risen from the mass of foliage. It proved to be the leopard's-bane, probably an "escape" from some neighbouring garden, but already well established and thriving like any native. But the Common does not consist wholly of dry ground; in one place, near the centre of the golf-course, there is a marshy depression, and in it a small pond where the water is a foot or two deep in winter, but in a hot summer almost disappears. Here a double discovery awaits the inquirer. The muddy pool is full of one of the rarer mints--pennyroyal--and with it grows the curious _helosciadium inundatum_, or "least marsh-wort," a small umbelliferous plant which has more the habit and appearance of a water crowfoot, its lower leaves being cut in fine hair-like segments. Nor do the fields and lanes that adjoin the heath lack their distinctive charm. The orpine, or "live-long," a handsome purple stonecrop, is not uncommon by the hedgeside; and the lovely _geranium striatum_, or striped crane's-bill, an occasional straggler from gardens, has made for itself a home; a hardy little adventurer it is, and one hopes it may yet win a place among British flowers, as many a less desirable immigrant has done. Poppies and corn-marigolds are a wonder of red and gold in the cultivated fields, the poppies as usual looking their best (if agriculturists will pardon the remark) when they have a crop of wheat for a background. The queer little knawel springs up among spurrey and parsley-piert; and in one locality is the lesser snapdragon, which always commands attention, partly for its uncommonness, and partly as a scion of the romantic race of _Antirrhinum_, which has a fascination not for children only, but for all lovers of the quaint. I have mentioned the golf-course. To many a Common the golfers are becoming what the builders are to the Downs--invaders who, by the trimming of grass and cutting down of bushes, are turning the natural into the artificial, and appropriating for the use of the few the possession of the many. To everyone his recreation ground; but are not the golf clubs getting rather more than their portion? XI QUAINTNESS IN FLOWERS Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes. MILTON.