APRIL NOTES IN THE GARDEN 73 



the swiftness with which plants that seem to be dead 

 one week are in full leaf and even in bud a fortnight 

 later. The Aethionemas, for instance, were all cut 

 back by the bitter wind of February, after keeping 

 their leaves fresh and green until then. Their branches 

 seemed to be quite dead, and one could not but fear 

 lest their roots were dead too. But then, one day, 

 all those withered branches were covered with little 

 green tufts, and a few days later with little green 

 leaves, and then, as the tufts opened, there were pink 

 buds in the heart of them; and now, if we have warm 

 weather and sunshine, Aethionema coridifolium and 

 A. pulchellum will begin to flower in a few weeks. 

 No plant is more rapid in throwing up its flowering 

 stalks than the little biennial Androsace coronopifolia. 

 It is best to sow this plant where it is to flower; and 

 even then it often seems to pine through our winters. 

 But with the first warm weather slender stalks rise 

 from the tufts as they change from bronze to green, 

 and now these stalks have a starry crown of white 

 flowers that will continue for several months. An- 

 drosace lactea is a perennial with much the same 

 habit of growth and with flowers of even more delicate 

 beauty, which is now in full bud after seeming to 

 resent the freaks of an English winter as much as A. 

 coronopifolia. Androsace carnea is in flower with 

 blossoms of delicate pink, and is sending out green 

 shoots in all directions among the leaf-mould with 

 which it has been dressed. Nearly all delicate Alpines 

 need to be dressed with leaf-mould when they start 



