APRIL 51 



century. I will only add, that my experience with 

 the Crown Imperial has taught me to leave it alone as 

 much as possible, and never to remove or divide the 

 bulbs. 



I very much admire the pseonies, both the tree and 

 herbaceous sorts, among the spring flowers, and I rank 

 them among the flowers of April, though they are 

 generally not in their full beauty till May. But in 

 April there is a special beauty in the young foliage 

 holding the unopened buds, and the foliage is so very 

 different in the different species that a collection of 

 them makes a very pleasant study. Many are in 

 flower in April ; the first with me is always P. cretensis, 

 a dwarf species, with very pale rose, almost white 

 flowers ; and this is followed by the very handsome 

 P. Whitmanniana, from the Caucasus. This pseony 

 has been introduced more than fifty years, but is still 

 very scarce, though its large yellow flowers are very 

 handsome, and give it the appearance of a gigantic 

 trollius. When the flowers of the pseonies are past, 

 their beauty is by no means over, for their foliage and 

 curious seed-vessels are attractive objects in the garden 

 for many months. I leave the dicentras, though I 

 think D. spedalilis the finest hardy herbaceous plant 

 that has been introduced during the last fifty years ; 

 the pansies, anemones, candytufts, and a host of other 



