Such are the blue bird's-eye, which just colours
the mowing grass in shady spots and patches near the fence, and
occasionally the bee-orchis and the butterfly-orchis. The latter does not
grow tall in the meadows as it does in the woods, but affects a humbler
growth. Blue wild geraniums also flourish in patches in the meadows, and
sometimes cranesbill and campion. But campions do not seed well among the
thick grasses and seldom hold their own, as they do where a copse has been
cut down, or on a hedgeside. And, though it is not a flower, there is the
"quaking grass" beloved of children, though useless as cattle food, and a
sign of bad pasturage, but the only grass which cottage people gather to
keep, as a memento of the hayfields.
[Illustration: ORCHIS. _From photographs by E. Seeley_.]
Flowering plants form a large part of the actual herbage from which the
hay is made. The bottom of a good crop of mowing grass springs from a
tangle of clover and leguminous plants, all owning blossoms, and many of
them of brilliant hues and exquisite perfume. Chief among these is the red
meadow-clover, the pride of the hayfields. Few plants can match its
perfume, or the cool freshness of its leaves.
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