BEFORE WHITE VIOLETS 



February Flowers 



Between snowdrops and white violets there are 

 not a great many harbingers of the spring, even 

 should the days and nights of February and March 

 be mild ; or, if there are, they remain obscure 

 except to the curious searchers. The February 

 cuckoo never calls for me, and, if he did, I think I 

 still should doubt, and find a new significance in 

 Wordsworth's query, " O cuckoo, shall I call thee 

 bird ? " Still, a few springing or flowering things 

 are noticeable to-day. Thus, in cosier coppices and 

 warm hedgerows, many plants of the dog mercury 

 have thrust through the soil, and have scarcely un- 

 rolled their leaves before they show blossom sign. 

 The dog mercury is an uncouth figure at first appear- 

 ance, crumpled up as if nipped by cold, not unlike 

 the tender bracken fronds when these uncrinkle in 

 May. This mercury is a modest, small plant, often 

 overlooked in February, but much helping by-and- 

 by to give the coppices their glorious sheet of 

 green. The wood sallows are much more notice- 

 able. Always in February they look beautiful, with 

 their pearl-lined twigs, each pearl creamy and so 

 satiny soft ; it is scarcely better to look at, this 

 sallow, in the days when its gold dust is fit to scatter. 



Elsewhere yews are flowering unmistakably, 

 showing their tiny balls of yellow slightly tinged 

 with red. But the " living smoke " of this grand 

 and sombre tree will not rise in the air in 

 February. 



41 



