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But the colouring was restful, the air here on the dry gravel soil light and eager, and the sense of height and space exhilarating. A fringe of harebells, of orange hawkweed and dwarf red sorrel bordered the road. Every small oasis of turf, amongst the heath and by the wayside, carried its pretty crop of centaury and wild thyme, of bed-straw, milkwort, and birdsfoot trefoil.
There tamarisk, which no green leaf adorns, And there the spicy Syrian costos burns; There centaury supplies the wholesome flame, That from Therssalian Chiron takes its name; The gummy larch tree, and the thapsos there, Woundwort and maidenweed perfume the air, There the long branches of the long-lived hart With southernwood their odours strong impart, The monsters of the land, the serpents fell, Fly far away and shun the hostile smell."
She wanted to make Michal a hot salt and bran poultice and prepare her a posset of centaury, but these and sundry other good offices Michal absolutely declined, declaring that she had no fear of catching cold. After putting the young woman to bed, she sat down beside her, and rubbed Michal's tiny white feet between her hands. She said it was good remedy against sleeplessness and anxiety.
"But these are nothing, Clara," she said, laying the flowers on her lap. "If you could come up higher to where the goats are feeding, then you would indeed see something! Bushes on bushes of the red centaury, and ever so many more of the blue bell- flowers; and then the bright yellow rock roses, that gleam like pure gold, and all crowding together in the one spot.
As long as the ground retains a few remnants of the vernal rains, this rude vegetation does not lack a certain charm, when the pyramids of the oyster plant and the slender branches of the cotton thistle rise above the wide carpet formed by the yellow-flowered centaury saffron heads; but let the droughts of summer come and we see but a desolate waste, which the flame of a match would set ablaze from one end to the other.
Above its gravel beach rises a slope of coarse short grass, woven through with wild thyme and yellow crowtoe. Sea-pinks cluster on the fringe of grass and delicate groups of fairy-flax are bright-blue in stony places. Red centaury and yellow bed-straw and white bladder campion flourish. Tiny wild roses, clinging to the ground, fleck the green with spots of vivid white.
Many authors have observed, that, along with the tonic and stomachic qualities of a bitter, Centaury frequently proves cathartic; but it is possible that this seldom happens, unless it be taken in very large doses.
Around her were the blue flowers softly waving to and fro, and beyond the gleaming patches of the cistus flowers and the red centaury, while the sweet scent of the brown blossoms and of the fragrant prunella enveloped her as she sat. Everything was so lovely! so lovely!
Straight away the wool is recognized as being of excellent quality, so much so that, during the three or four weeks of nest-building, I can daily witness the gleaning, now on the clary, now on the centaury. Nevertheless the Babylonian plant appears to be preferred, no doubt because of its whiter, finer and more plentiful down.
Sometimes, to give a variety to our amusements, the girls sung to the guitar; and while they thus formed a little concert, my wife and I would stroll down the sloping field, that was embellished with blue bells and centaury, talk of our children with rapture, and enjoy the breeze that wafted both health and harmony.
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