Numerous Early Comers 



beauty lies in the crimson anthers of a freshly-opened 

 flower, and a neatness of habit, stiff, sturdy stalks, and 

 close-set spikes of larger flowers, and a softer tone of blue 

 than in the type. Those I have bought at various times 

 bearing the same name have been nothing but strong bulbs 

 of ordinary bifolia. It is hard to get hold of the forms 

 of bifolia, for few lists include any but alba and carnea. 

 The former is a lovely little thing, most suitable for the 

 rock garden, and carnea is very much like it but only 

 carnea by courtesy, for, unless within a few hours of its 

 opening, it will have faded to an ivory white. The rare old 

 var. rubra is a lovely thing, rosy-salmon in colour, and so big 

 and strong-looking you would expect it to ramp and fill the 

 garden, whereas in reality it seldom makes an offset, and 

 has never set seed here. Mr. Allen's seedling raised from 

 it and called Pink Beauty is rather earlier and a fainter, 

 more rosy pink, and rather better at increasing. Another 

 of his raising, var. purpurea, has deep-red stamens and a 

 purplish tone of blue, and is distinct but rather heavy in 

 colour, and not so pleasing as the type unless looked at 

 closely. There is a little colony of these forms in the rock 

 garden, in a flat bed that is overrun later in the year by 

 Convolvulus tenuissimus (the plant generally wrongly labelled 

 as C. althaeoides, which has a much larger and paler flower 

 with purple eye, and is more tender, living but refusing to 

 flower here), which throws a veil of silver leaves and bright, 

 rose-coloured flowers over the summer sleep of the Scillas. 

 In the same bed I have the form I like best of Scilla 

 stbirica, known as var. multiflora. It won my affection by 

 its habit of blossoming three weeks earlier than the type, and 

 I prefer its lighter, less aggressively Prussian blue colouring 

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