20 THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



cbarming early spring flower, Scilla silerica, with flowers of tbe 

 most vivid porcelain blue. To it might be added, with great advan- 

 tage to the lady's spring garden, 8. lifolia, a darker and richer blue 

 than 8. siherica, not quite so tall, and quite as well worth growing; 

 8. mncena, purplish blue, flowering after the Siberian squill and S. 

 iifolia, and a good size larger than either ; and S. hifolia alba and 

 rosea. There are others of great beauty, but for the present we 

 will be content with a few of the best. 



BuJbocodium vernum is, like the Iris, a native of Spain, but it 

 has taken kindly to this little island, and grows strongly in it if at 

 all well treated. Before the snow is oft' the ground, in the very 

 dawn of spring, its pale rosy purple flower buds peep up — ay, 

 before the crocus itself. Nothing can be more exquisite. Handsome 

 as the flowers are in this state, the distinction in colour aflforded by 

 it is the greatest boon to the early spring gardener. There is 

 nothing else at all like it in this respect. Among snowdrops — com- 

 mon or Crimean — its eflect would be unique, and indeed it may be 

 mingled with any choice spring flowers with the best advantage. It 

 is very dwarf, and in baskets or vases for iudoor work would be best 

 near the edges. We have talked of a purple and yellow, a pale 

 rosy purple, and several blue flowers ; the next is of a rich yellow. 

 The " Hoop Petticoat Narcissus " it is commonly called ; ISfarcissus 

 hulbocoddum in scientific language. It, like the otb.ers I name, is 

 perfectly hardy, while dwarf, and neat, and choice as any flower 

 from the sunniest and most genial of climates can be. It should be 

 grown in sheltered but not in a shaded place, and in light deep and 

 free soil, to attain perfection. We will bid good-bye, for the time 

 being, to choice spring flowers, with two gems rarely or never seen 

 in gardens, but that is the very reason why they should be written 

 about, and brought from their obscurity. In the Kew catalogue, 

 compiled thirteen years ago by Mr. Niven — now curator of the Hull 

 Botanic Grarden — and perhaps the most complete list of lovely hardy 

 plants extant, there are no two mentioned more lovely than Pusch- 

 Jcinia scillioides and TritUeia uniflora, though neither of these are 

 mentioned in it. The first is a Siberian, the second a native of 

 Mendoza. Both are hardy, abundant bloomers, and of the most 

 exquisite pale lilac in the one case, and in the other pale blue and 

 white. One of the first things one fond of spring gardening, and 

 anxious to make a little more of it than is generally done, should do 

 IS to secure a root or two of such as these, so that in a few years a 

 good stock may be had. Both plants are now at Kew, and in most 

 good botanic gardens. For these and such as these it would be a 

 capital plan to make a slightly raised bed, with a few rustic stones 

 b.alf sunk around, and a few through the surface of the bed by way 

 of miniature rocks. This bed should be drained, and filled to the 

 depth of eighteen inches with fine sandy peat and loam ; the sand to 

 be silver sand if convenient. The bed should be situated in some 

 isolated and fully exposed place, and attended to solely by its lady 

 owner, as at present there is not one gardener in a hundred knows 

 anything of the exquisite plants under notice, though, once ac- 

 quainted with them, they will be as fond and careful of them as we 



