Flowers and Gardens 



look. It is altogether different in the 

 case of those trees and shrubs which 

 flower in the early spring. Here the 

 blossom, instead of being borne upon 

 a shoot, is put forth close upon the 

 branches. In the common Hazel, for 

 instance, or in the yellow Cornus mas 

 of the shrubberies, it lies all the winter 

 just ready for unfolding, and then opens 

 at once before a leaf is visible. As 

 the season advances, we find blossoms 

 upon longer stalks, and accompanied by 

 a few young sprouting leaves ; or perhaps, 

 as in the flowering Currant, they appear 

 amidst a general bursting of the leaf- 

 buds, so that the plant when in bloom 

 has the unfinished, half-developed look 

 of which we have already spoken. The 

 wild Sloe, or cultivated Plum, the Elm, 

 Mezereon, and the early Willows, will fur- 

 nish us with other examples of this type. 1 



And what has been said of trees and 

 shrubs will hold good also of the her- 

 baceous plants. In the first few months 

 of the year, we do not so commonly find 

 arising a loose, much-branching, leafy 

 structure, like that of the Buttercups, or 



1 [There are some marked exceptions to this type, as 

 in Laurustinus, Box, Agara, Daphne Blagayana, &c., 

 which bear their flowers in early spring and when the 

 shrubs are in full leaf. H. N. E.] 

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