THE PLANT-WORLD IN MARCH. 



BY BANK AND COPSE. 



" Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees ; 

 Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, 

 Swollen with sap, put forth their shoots ; 

 Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane ; 

 Birds sing and pair again." CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 



THE March sun has not much strength; so that we 

 are not likely to find many flowers as yet in the 

 denser thickets of a wood, or on any bank facing the 

 north. By the sunny roadside hedgerow, or among the 

 open coppice not long felled, we shall find the greatest 

 number of the flowers of March. Whether our ramble 

 be in the Midland or the South-Eastern counties, or in the 

 earlier Norfolk or South -West, or in the later North of 

 higher ground in Wales, will make a difference of from 

 one to three weeks in the dates of Nature's year, on either 

 side of what we may term the Midland and South-Eastern 

 average. So too, if we repeat our ramble over the same 

 ground after an interval of two or three weeks, we shall find 

 a marked advance. What was then in bursting bud is now 

 in leaf : what was in leaf may now be in flower : flowers, 



