My Garden in Spring 



forms of G. Elwesii are. It is known botanically as 

 G. caucasicus grandis, and is a late flowering form of the 

 Caucasian form of nivalis. It was brought to Straff an by 

 Lord Clarina on his return from the Crimean War together 

 with bulbs of G. plicafus, which was the Snowdrop that 

 spoke so sweetly of home to our soldiers when the Spring 

 melted the snow and the trenches were covered with white 

 blossoms instead. Lovely grandis has never been really 

 comfortable here, and I fear is decreasing in numbers, 

 though its few flowers were very lovely last March. 



As this beauty returns my affection and care so 

 coldly I turn to a more generous-natured form which 

 the late Mr. Neill Eraser sent me without a name, so 

 shortly before his death that my letter of thanks and 

 inquiries was too late to bring an answer. The bulb 

 he gave me has grown so well that I am now re- 

 minded of his pleasant friendship from several corners 

 of the garden, but the original clump is the best placed. 

 It is at the foot of a large bush of Erica scoparia, a 

 heath seldom seen in English gardens, as it has little to 

 recommend it save a very graceful habit and good ever- 

 green colour, the flowers being very inconspicuous, small, 

 and of a brownish green, but an interesting plant, as it 

 is one of the species of heath which produce burrs or 

 knots on the roots, and though the best are those from 

 E. arborea, in the Landes district (where E. scoparia is 

 very plentiful) its root-burrs are collected and exported 

 for making the pipes known here as briar-root pipes, a 

 corruption of the French name Bruyere. I grubbed up 

 my plant in the woods round Arcachon, and though I 

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