May 8—The country was a natural hothouse this morning when I went out to check up my list of Spring flowers... and to find that in her usual efficient manner has forgotten nothing. AN the Thistles, including the handsome Chinese Thistle, which may well rival its Scottish cousin, is now "in its first perfection: Daisy Fleabane, Bugle-weed, all kinds of But-teacups, the Vetches, Star Chickweed, Jill-over-the-ground, Henbit, Wild Strawberries, Stori's-bill ud a score of others which I could not even check up by a visit to the Kiaochow Road Park where the Weed-garden gives so much information to amateurs: I did, ho ever, find there a good example of Lamium album, which I call White Dead-nettle,... but why no wild roses? Just now this most beautiful of all our wild flower: is at the peak of its perfection in the country. and I saw many a creekside painted pink white with its lovely blossoms this morning. And in the amidst of all this I found a little white flower which I mentally classified as "Star-of-Bethlehem" (Ornithcgalum wmbellatum)—which took me back like the crack of a whip to the Second Book of Kings (vi—25) which tells about ihe state of famine in Samaria when "an as head sold for four score pieces of silver... and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver." The explanation of this apparent nonsense is quite simple: just a mistake in translation: the name used for this flower by the Arabs could be translated as it was in 2 Kings vi 25, but it really referred to t simple little flower which had an edible root, and was otherwise known as "Birds'-milk" (see the scientific name above). Obviously such a food was worth about a Pound a pint in times of famine. I must add that the flower is well known in France as "La Dame d'Onze Heures." because it only opens at 11 o'clock. Obviously I was a little late when I finished my walk this Sunday morning.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.