CHAPTER XXIV 



Plants with Biblical interest Historical associations Plant 

 literature Scents Legends. 



I THINK that February is almost the most interesting 

 month of the year to the gardener : in no other month 

 are there so many changes. Every day, and almost 

 every hour, shows some old favourite coming to cheer 

 and delight us with the same beauties as before, and 

 yet not the same; and as I go round the garden, I 

 often try to puzzle out some of the mysteries of the 

 long sleep and the awakening of plants, and always 

 with the same result, that it is all a mystery which 

 hitherto has utterly defied our research. 



Everything connected with the sleep of plants is full 

 of interest, and especially the sleep during hard frost, 

 for we are very ignorant of the action of frost on plants, 

 we cannot say for certain how the destruction begins 

 or ends, nor can we in any way tell from the structure 

 of a plant that it will or will not be able to resist frost. 



