With Abingdon we get within range of Oxford, and what remains is distinctly in the Oxford zone, just as all the river below Hampton is London in character. The famous Oxford meadows, with their range of wild flowers, rival the Swiss meadows. The profusion of flowers in the riverside gardens has already been noted, but these differ little, except in richness of growth, from those usually found in cottage gardens. More interesting to those studying the Thames as a theme are the flowers growing wild along the banks, which are native to the river. Among these may be reckoned the purple loosestrife, with its tapering gaily coloured spikes standing often four feet high, and at times mistaken for a foxglove; also the pink-flowering willow-herb, the wild mustard with its raw tone of yellow, the buckbean growing in low-lying stagnant places, and the tall yellow iris, clear-cut and soldierly, with its broad-bladed leaves rustling along the margin of the banks. Not less beautiful are the burr-reeds and flowering rushes, the marsh-mallows and the cuckoo-flowers, found in many parts of the river; but the growth of wild flowers, including these and others, is richest of all in the meadows below Oxford. Here the fritillaries are especially noted:-- I know what white, what purple fritillaries, The grassy harvest of the river fields Above by Ensham, down by Sandford yields. --_Matthew Arnold._ Also the yellow iris, the cuckoo flower, the water villarsia, the purple orchis, the willow-weed, and many another are here seen in full perfection. The Nuneham woods rank with the Oxford meadows as an attraction, and the inn at Sandford still holds its own, though overshadowed by a paper mill. There is one glorious gem by the river which is in a category by itself, and is unapproached by rivals; this is the small church of Iffley. Its architecture is not pure, but its claim to date from Norman times is undisputed. No one passing along the meadows should fail to stop at Iffley and see some genuine Norman mouldings and massive architecture. After this we come to Oxford and may stand on Folly Bridge, and as we watch the water flowing swiftly beneath our feet may run with it in imagination past all the beauties and all the places of interest already described, on by cool meadows and overshadowing trees until it meets the flooding uptide below Richmond and mingling with it in the ebb is lost in the "town" water of Brentford and Hammersmith, and so plunges into the thick grey flood by London, and on by wharves and docks until-- Stately prows are rising and bowing, Shouts of mariners winnow the air, And level banks for sands endowing The tiny green ribbon that showed so fair. --_Jean Ingelow._