CHAPTER IV 



Snowdrops 



ONE can hardly picture an English garden without the 

 Snowdrop. Yet not only are we forbidden by the com- 

 pilers of lists of British plants to say it is indigenous to 

 our woods, but much has been written to prove it was 

 but little known in our gardens till well into the seven- 

 teenth century. The chief evidence for this view is found 

 in Bacon's omission of the Snowdrop from his list of 

 plants for the early months of the year, and Johnson's 

 remark, when editing his edition of Gerard, published in 

 1633, that "some call them also Snowdrops," as though 

 the plant as well as the name were still not well known. 

 One great writer on such subjects, who so seldom makes 

 a mistake that I feel almost as though I must be dream- 

 ing and ought not to believe my own eyes, has stated 

 that Gerard omitted the Snowdrop in 1597 and Parkinson 

 did so also in the first edition of the Paradisus in 1629, 

 but it appears in both as Leuconium bulbosum praecox minus, 

 and there are figures given in both books. Anyway, 

 whatever the seventeenth century gardens contained, I 

 should be greatly disappointed if this twentieth century 

 one could not show me a Snowdrop at all times from late 

 October until the advent of April brings so many other 

 flowers that one scarcely notices their disappearance. 

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