THE SNOWDROP AND 

 SNOWFLAKE. 



Galanthus nivalis ; Leucojum eestivum. 

 Xat. Ord. ^L 



ROBABLY to many of our 

 readers the two plants here 

 figured will be better known as 

 garden blossoms than as real wild 

 flowers. Like the primrose and 

 the foxglove, their beauty and 

 grace have led to their wholesale 

 introduction into the garden ; 

 they are, nevertheless, true wild 

 flowers, as truly wild as any 

 buttercup. It has been con- 

 tended by some writers that 

 the snowdrop, the smaller of 

 the two plants represented in our illus- 

 tration is probably not indigenous ; but 

 it has, in any case, got so thoroughly 

 naturalised amongst us that, whatever may have been the 

 state of affairs five hundred years ago, it is now as much a 

 wild flower in our midst as any of the other plants 

 mentioned in the British Flora, and as such is always 

 included without question amongst them. The snowdrop 

 is a perennial. Its graceful little drooping flowers must 

 be sought for in orchards, shady pastures, woods, and 



