242 Dr. H. Franklin Parsons on the Times of 
primroses, and bluebells ; and, following this hint of nature, the 
early bulbous plants may with advantage be planted under trees 
and shrubs in the garden to fill with beauty spaces which would 
otherwise be bare. 
Almost all of the earliest spring flowers come up from bulbous 
or fleshy roots—I do not use the word root in the strict botanical 
sense—so that their early development takes place with the aid 
of materials formed and stored up during the previous season, 
and prepared by processes taking place during the autumn and 
winter months. Of spring flowers a larger proportion are blue 
or purple, and a smaller proportion red, than of the flowers 
occurring later in the year. 
The following remarks as to dates of flowering refer only to 
my own garden, which is not a particularly early one, being on 
a cold clay soil, and having a slope to the north and east, though 
for a suburban garden it gets a fair amount of sun. In a warm 
situation the times of flowering might be a fortnight earlier. 
The New Year, when it comes in, finds in my garden a few 
winter-blooming flowers which have appeared in December, 
such as the Christmas rose, the sweet-scented butterbur (Nar- 
dosmia fragrans), and the yellow winter-flowering jasmine; as 
well as, if December has been mild, a few lingering survivors 
from summer and autumn. 
Of the flowers of the New Year, the first is the winter aconite 
(Eranthis hiemalis), of which the golden cups and green frills 
have during each of the past five years appeared in January, 
the average date being Jan. 17th. The flowers of the Mediter- 
ranean heath (rica carnea) are usually fully developed in 
January. The primrose is generally in flower before the end 
of January, but the garden primrose is more or less modified 
by cultivation, and not infrequently flowers in autumn, or 
even in a mild December. The common snowdrop (Galanthus 
nivalis) is another flower of January, its average date of 
appearance being Jan. 26th. The more recently introduced 
species, G. plicatus and G. Elwesii, are rather later, about 
the middle of February. The hardy Cyclamen coum, with its 
crimson flowers, is out in most seasons early in February. 
During February many early bulbous plants are in flower, as the 
early snowflake (Leucojum vernum), several species of crocus, Iris 
reticulata, Bulbocodium vernum, the tiny Narcissus minimus, and 
Scilla bifolia, with its panicles of deep blue flowers, to my mind 
more beautiful than the larger sky-blue flowers of the better- 
known Scilla sibirica, which flowers about three weeks later. 
Anemone blanda and A. hepatica also bloom in February. Of the 
spring flowering species of crocus, the earliest with me is the 
common yellow Crocus aureus, which precedes by more than a 
week the ‘cloth of gold,” Crocus stellaris and C. Imperati, which 
