344 The Snowdrop. 



One of the most striking references to the flower among the 

 poets is to be found in some lines by Robert Buchanan, who 



says : — 



" Could you understand 

 One who was wild as if he found a mine 

 Of golden guineas, when he noticed first 

 The soft green streaks in a Snowdrop's inner leaves?" 



Here is another note — this time by Mrs Browning — and 

 instinct with that feeling which comes to those who have been 

 sufferers themselves. It is : — 



" The poor sad Snowdrop — growing between drifts, 

 Mysterious medium 'twixt the plants and frost, 

 So faint with winter while so quick with spring, 

 And doubtful if to thaw itself away 

 AVith that snow near it." 



Everyone knows the following from Thomson's "Seasons" : — 



" Fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace; 

 Throws out the Snowdrop and the Crocus first." 



These are only a few among the now numerous references in 

 the poets to the Snowdrop, and one would gladly have culled a 

 few more from a bouquet of such flowers of poesy had it not been 

 that the botany of the flower will require all the further time 

 available. I had intended to illustrate this section of the 

 subject with some living specimens of the leading species of 

 Galanthus, but having to leave home before the flowers were all 

 open, I can only furnish a few imperfect, because not fully 

 developed specimens, and some of these are not yet far enough 

 forward to enable anyone to form a true idea of their characters. 



The Botany of the Snowdrop. 

 While the late Dean Herbert and other botanists did not fail 

 to study the Snowdrop in a systematic way, and the former in 

 his monograph of the " Amaryllidece " treated of the few plants 

 •of the genus known to him, it has been reserved to later botanists 

 to deal with the genus Galanthus in a more thorough manner. 

 Mr J. G. Baker has done yeoman service in this way in his 

 " Handbook of the AmaryllideEE," and in recent descriptions of 

 the newer species in various periodicals, but the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society's action in holding a conference on Snowdrops in 

 1 89 1, brought the study of the flower to a height never before 

 reached. At that conference a brilliant synopsis of the Snowdrop 



