My Garden in Spring 



stunted herbaceous plants and gaps where early flowering 

 things have retired below, and we dare not attempt annuals, 

 as might be done in better soils. I grudge no plotting and 

 planning, no preparation and waiting, that will bear full 

 fruit at this period. I was born in the middle of May, and 

 perhaps some mystic influence crept into me from those 

 first weeks of my life. Most of the scents of this time are 

 delicious. Wistaria one can never sniff up too much of ; 

 Azaleas are pleasant if kept out-of-doors, and even Haw- 

 thorn is good blown from a distance, while Irises, Lilacs, 

 Double Gorse, Pansies, Lily of the Valley, and Cowslips 

 are all things to bring close to one's nose. Later in the 

 year come heavy stuffing scents, as the sixteenth-century 

 writers called them Elder, Syringa, Lime, and such far- 

 reaching, Hay-fever producers ; but now it is good to open 

 one's nostrils wide. There is one exception, and that is 

 the most fiendish plant I know of, the sort of thing Beelze- 

 bub might pluck to make a bouquet for his mother-in-law 

 the Hairy Arum, Helicodiceros crinitus, which looks as if it 

 had been made out of a sow's ear for spathe, and the tail 

 of a rat that died of Elephantiasis for the spadix. The 

 whole thing is a mingling of unwholesome greens, livid 

 purples, and pallid pinks, the livery of putrescence in fact, 

 and it possesses an odour to match the colouring. I once 

 entrapped the vicar of a poor parish into smelling it, and 

 when he had recovered his breath he said it reminded him 

 of a pauper funeral. It only exhales this stench for a few 

 hours after opening, and during that time it is better to 

 stand afar off and look at it through a telescope. It attracts 

 all the Green Bottle-flies of the district, who think there 

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