My Garden in Spring 



certainly implies an autumnal habit when at home, but 

 don't rely on names plants are no more bound by them 

 than Irish railway officials by the time-table. " Sure, sorr, 

 and aren't you taking the time-table too seriously ? " was 

 an Irish guard's reply to a query whether it was possible 

 the train could make up for an unauthorised stop of three- 

 quarters of an hour ! Carlina acaulis grows a fine, tall stem 

 in English gardens, and Caltha polypetala never had a petal, 

 let alone many of them, so never take a name too seriously. 

 The only plant of M. autumnalis I have known intimately 

 for any length of time is the magnificent old specimen 

 under the south wall at Bitton, and for many years it has 

 flowered in the early spring, but last autumn it began to 

 justify its name by an autumnal flowering. I had heard 

 of plants in Trinity College Gardens, Dublin, and it is in 

 the Kew Hand-List, so I hope flourishes there, though I 

 have never seen it, but beyond that I never met it else- 

 where in England except in extreme youth yearlings, 

 that I had grown myself or seen at Bitton, raised from 

 the fruits of the venerable specimen. But neither here 

 nor there could these one-year-olds be induced, whatever 

 treatment was offered them, to reappear when once they 

 had disappeared below ground. They formed a fat little 

 white root, but it slept like the Sleeping Beauty, and no 

 prince could be found to wake it. A friend of mine once 

 described a plant he had seen in Sicily, and I recognised 

 my long-desired Mandrake, and railed at him for bringing 

 no roots, so when another good friend told me he was 

 going to Sicily, and asked could he send me any plant, I, 

 imagining that island was paved from end to end with 

 Mandrake rosettes, begged for a couple of middle-aged 

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