M WILD FLOWEES OF 



It has been doubted by some botanists whether the 

 Snowdrop be really indigenous to Britain, and it is 

 supposed that the monks of old, who had dedicated 

 its ' pendent flakes of vegetating snow" to the Virgin, 

 might have introduced it from Italy. PHILLIPS, in 

 his " Flora Historical mentions that in a Dutch 

 work on bulbous flowers, published in 1614, it was 

 then stated to be very seldom found excepting in the 

 gardens of the curious, and remarks that no allusions 

 are made to it by our early poets. In the spot above 

 indicated, at the northern base of the Herefordshire 

 Beacon, or Camp hill, it has every appearance of 

 being genuinely wild, and this spot is nearly a mile 

 from Little Malvern Priory. Here it was noticed by 

 WITHERING more than half a century ago. Many 

 other English localities have been given for the Snow- 

 drop, but its increase from the parent bulb, when 

 once thrown out of a garden, may well account for its 

 naturalization in so many places. 



February has generally a few oases of brightness, 

 kindly intended by Providence for the plants that 

 flower at this early time ; they take advantage of the 

 sunny gleam, birds sing, the sky is calm and blue, 

 and Winter seems gone. But the tyrant returns in 

 haste, and quickly represses the transient smile, 

 gloomily involving all things in cold and sadness once 

 again. Then at the close of the month dreary is the 

 external aspect of nature to the exploring eye, weary 

 of the monotony of the house, and anxious to look out 

 somewhere. Leaden clouds involve all things, and 

 vapours from the south dash continuously over the 

 reeking landscape. Dimly amidst the fogs the distant 

 mountains, robed in snow and half hidden in clouds, 



