which he accounts for is cloudberry. "Cloudberrie groweth naturally
upon the tops of two high mountaines (among the mossie places), one in
Yorkshire, called Ingleborough, the other in Lancashire called Pendle,
two of the highest mountains in all England, where the clouds are
lower than the tops of the same all winter long, whereupon the country
people have called them cloudberries; found there by a curious
gentleman in the knowledge of plants, called Mr. Hesketh, often
remembered."
For those who care to seek it Gerard supplies an unequalled picture of
the wild-flower life in London in Elizabethan days. It is pleasant to
think of the little wild bugloss growing "in the drie ditch bankes
about Piccadilla" (Piccadilly), of mullein "in the highwaies about
Highgate"; of clary "in the fields of Holborne neere unto Grays Inn";
of lilies of the valley, the rare white-flowered betony, devil's-bit,
saw-wort, whortleberries, dwarf willows and numerous other wild plants
on Hampstead Heath; of the yellow-flowered figwort "in the moist
medowes as you go from London to Hornsey"; of the yellow pimpernel
"growing in abundance between Highgate and Hampstead"; of sagittaria
"in the Tower ditch at London"; of white saxifrage "in the great field
by Islington called the Mantles and in Saint George's fields behinde
Southwarke"; of the vervain mallow "on the ditch sides on the left
hand of the place of execution by London called Tyburn and in the
bushes as you go to Hackney"; of marsh-mallows "very plentifully in
the marshes by Tilbury Docks"; of the great wild burnet "upon the side
of a causey, which crosseth a field whereof the one part is earable
ground and the other part medow, lying between Paddington and Lysson
Green neere unto London upon the highway"; of hemlock dropwort
"betweene the plowed lands in the moist and wet furrowes of a field
belonging to Battersey by London, and amongst the osiers against York
House a little above the Horse-ferry against Lambeth"; of the small
earth-nut "in a field adjoyning to Highgate on the right side of the
middle of the village and likewise in the next field and by the way
that leadeth to Paddington by London"; of chickweed spurry "in the
sandy grounds in Tothill fields nigh Westminster"; of the pimpernel
rose "in a pasture as you goe from a village hard by London called
Knightsbridge unto Fulham, a village thereby"; of dwarf elder "in
untoiled places plentifully in the lane at Kilburne Abbey by London";
of silver cinquefoil "upon brick and stone walls about London,
especially upon the bricke wall in Liver Lane"; of water-ivy, "which
is very rare to find, nevertheless I found it once in a ditch by
Bermondsey house near to London and never elsewhere."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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