CHAPTER III 



Celandine Daffodils Dog's-tooth violets Anemones Spring 

 shrubs Strength of flowers in bursting through the soil- 

 Uses of frost. 



'MARCH cometh in like a lion,' and 'March winds 

 and April showers bring forth May flowers.' But 

 however cold and blustering March may be, it is 

 not merely a nursery for flowers to come in May ; 

 it has abundance of flowers of its own, both in the 

 fields and hedgerows and in the gardens. There are 

 perhaps no more welcome flowers than the wild-flowers 

 of March ; in the hedgerows are primroses and violets, 

 and everywhere is the bright coltsfoot and the lesser 

 celandine, certainly one of the brightest flowers of 

 the year, and 'so called bycause that it beginneth 

 to spring and to floure at the comming of the 

 swallowes ' (Lyte). But for all its beauty and fresh- 

 ness, I cannot join in Wordsworth's well-known 

 praises of it, for it is a sad weed in the garden, 



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