THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 85 



mon wild things are carefully cultivated and there receive the 

 admiration due them. We, too often, pass these fine plants by, 

 in the desire for the imported novelties of florist and nursery- 

 man. 



Death of Mrs. Asa Gray. — Mrs. Jane Loring Gray, 

 wife of the famous botanist, died at Pride's Crossing, Mass., 

 July 29, 1909, at the age of 84 years, having survived her dis- 

 tinguished husband more than twenty years. Mrs Gray was 

 a native of Boston and after the death of her husband con- 

 tinued to reside in the curator's house in the Harvard Botani- 

 cal Garden at Cambridge where the funeral was held. 



England's Earliest Flower. — Notwithstanding the 

 fact that London is situated in the latitude of Labrador and 

 therefore much further north than Montreal and Quebec, the 

 climate is so mild that some plants are able to bloom through- 

 out the season and therefore in strict truth England can have 

 no earliest flower. In commenting on our recent query as to 

 our earliest spring flower, The Gardening World says : ''In 

 some part or other of Britain the Christmas rose {Hellehorus 

 niger) may be seen in bloom in November and from that time 

 more or less till February. Then we have Galanthus nivalis 

 octobrensis which flowers in October although its congeners 

 bloom any time from Christmas till April in Britain. These 

 are followed by the winter aconite (Eranthis hyenialis) in 

 February from which time crocuses, daffodils and other bulbs 

 keep up a display till June. In referring to wild plants there 

 are some which bloom any month in the year provided the 

 winter is mild. This includes the daisy concerning which the 

 poet says, 'The rose has but a summer's reign, the daisy never 

 dies,' nevertheless we have seen hybrid perpetual roses in the 

 neighborhood of London at Christmas and in the neighbor- 

 hood of the sea on the south coast quite in abundance." 



