My Garden in Spring 



their root-collected store of nutriment to form a neat little 

 tuber before the summer heat dries them up. E. cilicica 

 is worth having too, as it comes after the older species has 

 gone out of flower, and its red stems and more finely 

 divided frills are attractive. It is beginning to colonise 

 here by self-sown seedlings, but I fear will never rival the 

 friend of one's childhood, which is in more than one sense 

 first in the field. 



Are you nervous of scorpions ? If so plant a wide 

 ring of Winter Aconite, and during its growing season at 

 any rate you can feel safe in the centre of this magic 

 circle, for Gerard tells us quite gravely it " is of such 

 force, that if the scorpion passe by where it groweth and 

 touche the same, presently he becometh dull, heavy, and 

 senseless, and if the same scorpion by chance touch the 

 white Hellebor he is presently delivered from his drow- 

 sinesse." What fertile imaginations those old gentle- 

 men had ! 



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