many great trees grew there , planted long ago , falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants ; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth , of olive and of bay ; and there were junipers and myrtles ; and thymes that grew in bushes , or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones ; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers , or red , or pale green ; and marjorams and new-sprouting parsleys , and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of sam .