Snowdrops 



the sand is somewhat yellow not that the builder is 

 a Mongolian but it is the old friend we have bought 

 from grocers and seed-merchants as birdcage sand, and 

 is really a reddish-orange in colour. 



Plants love it, at any rate when new, and even if it 

 deteriorates with age I hope to find some means of 

 doctoring it up to full fertile strength again. I should 

 never have thought of trying Snowdrops in it but for Mr. 

 Wilks's kindness in letting me dig up a fine specimen of 

 Galanthus Allenii from his garden for me to figure ; and 

 when I saw how clean its bulb looked, and how strong 

 and fair were its roots in that sandy soil, I resolved it 

 should go into this newly-made sand-moraine, and its 

 apparent content there has caused other kinds to gather 

 round about it. G. octobrensis behaved badly here, and 

 flowered later and later each season, until it became 

 merged with the ordinary Snowdrop. I had hoped it 

 would have continued, and after becoming the latest of all 

 would go on until it was a summer flowerer, and then 

 come round to October again, but it has never done so. 

 G. byzantinus is my great link between Autumn and Spring. 

 It is interesting as being a supposed natural hybrid 

 between Elwesii and plicatus, having the flowers of the 

 former with their extra basal green spot, and the folded- 

 edged leaf of the latter. I find that freshly-imported 

 bulbs, if planted as soon as received, generally in August, 

 will give a succession of flowers from November to 

 February. Some of the earliest flowering forms I have 

 removed to the rock garden, and I find, though not so 

 early as in their first season, yet they have been in flower 

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