56 THE UNHEATED GREENHOUSE 



as happy in a moss-surfaced pan as in a furrow of its native 

 olive-yard on the Italian hills. There is the lovely Crocus 

 Imperati, in pencilled lilac and buff, and other delicate 

 winter-flowering species, beloved of many far above their 

 more robust Dutch brethren, which flower a little later. 

 Sisyrinchium grandiflorum, too, craves for shelter from the 

 January blast for its fragile bells, purple or white; while 

 Chionodoxa and Scilla, able to brave the hardest frosts, are 

 yet very willing to take life more easily. Cyclamen Coum and 

 C. vernum, too, with their allies, rosy or pure white with 

 marbled foliage, are ready to give us beautiful leaf forms 

 when the flowers are gone. Another lovely thing, too much 

 beloved of slugs in the open, and well worthy of shelter, is 

 Ornithogalum nutans, which decks itself daintily in green and 

 silver, while the peculiar sheen of its spikes of drooping 

 flowers under artificial light makes it a dinner-table decoration 

 quite unique in its effect. 



As spring advances, there is Lily-of-the-Valley, welcome 

 early or late ; and English Fritillaries, chequered like some 

 bit of old-world chintz, or white, or palest lemon, with nodding 

 heads ; and exotic forms like F. aurea, not slender and fragile 

 like the others, but hanging its large golden flowers upon 

 stems only three or four inches high. The various species of 

 Tulip, again which must not be confused with the garden 

 varieties give us a wide range of choice, from the strikingly 

 fine T. Kaufmanniana to the dainty little rose-and-white 

 T. Clusii. These are but a few, and every one of these, and 

 many more that might be added to the number, can be grown 

 in the open border, most of them without much trouble, 

 whilst it is not to be denied that good cultivation in pots 

 entails a considerable amount of labour and care ; but it has 

 its reward when flowers are rare and cold damp days forbid 

 much lingering in the garden in search of the few that may 

 happen to be there. 



