The Culmination of Spring 



Olearia myrsinites, a good evergreen for the dull months, is 

 now smothered in its white flowers, that make up in their 

 quantity for their rather small size. Round its feet are 

 some clumps of Wild Hyacinths, Dutch-raised seedlings 

 of wonderful charm. I first saw them at the great Jubilee 

 Haarlem Show. The most distinct appears in lists as 

 Scilla nutans delicata, and is of the true nutans type with 

 its pendant bells and long bracts, very nearly white but 

 with a delightful pale blue edge to each segment. Robin 

 Hood is flesh colour and not quite a pure nutans, having 

 just a touch of the open bells of hispanica, as it appears we 

 must now call the Scilla companulata of lists and one's 

 early days. The correct scientific name for the common 

 Bluebell is changed so often, and the highest authorities 

 disagree so endlessly, that I never know what to use for it. 

 The Kew Index and Kew Hand-List and the 1895 edition of 

 the London Catalogue all agree that it is Scilla festalis of 

 Salisbury ; but the 1908 edition of the London Catalogue 

 makes it Scilla nonscripta Hoffmgg and Link ; while the 

 British Museum favours Endymion non-scriptum Garcke 

 Fl. Deutschl. and the Abb< Coste, the latest French 

 authority, prefers Endymion nutans Dumont, and it seems 

 high time that a sort of Esperanto name compounded of 

 the lot was made for it. Whatever its name may be it does 

 well here, and I have it in many colours : the mauve pink 

 forms are very pretty in clumps among a bold massing of 

 the white, and look better there than when planted among 

 the blue form. S. hispanica has many good forms, too 

 red, blue, and white. The best of all is maxima, and when 

 it has become established and likes its home, and takes a 

 289 T 



