FEBRUARY 29 



and as it so travels it carries with it the bract in which 

 the flower was formed, and which at last becomes the 

 pretty cup in which the nut lies. It is this leafy cup 

 that has given the name to the tree. The Romans called 

 it wrylus, inventing the name from the Greek /co/avs, a 

 helmet or cap, for I believe KopvAos is not found as a 

 true Greek word. The tree is a native British tree, 

 and the old British name was hcesel, a name which it is 

 not at all likely was taken from corylus, but it has the 

 same meaning, for hcesle is a cap or hat, and hcesel-nutu 

 is the hatted nut. 



I wished to say something about the pleasure that 

 a gardener can get by watching the different ways 

 in which different plants come through the ground ; 

 but I must leave that to another chapter, and bring 

 this long record to a close with the hazel. Few 

 people are aware how our true British Flora gives us 

 almost no flowers for January or February, and, I 

 believe, none at all for January. Of course, I am 

 speaking only of the normal time of flowering, for 

 stray flowers, either premature or late, may often be 

 found ; and I exclude mosses and fungi, many of which 

 flower in winter, some very conspicuously, as the 

 scarlet pezizas. But the hazel and the spurge laurel, 

 and the two poplars, are, I believe, the only truly wild 

 British plants that flower before March, and this may 



