SPRING FLOWERS 155 



hardy, and should be in every spring garden, and they 

 come so early that the sight of them is really one of 

 the first pleasant surprises of the year. 



"With one more colour I will conclude my account of 

 the spring garden, I want a good scarlet, and I find it 

 in the anemone — not our wood anemone, on which I 

 now can say nothing, but the brilliant beauties of the 

 south of France. Throughout the year we have no 

 scarlet flower that will surpass the intense brilliancy of 

 A. fulgens, especially the large Greek form, and it is as 

 hardy as a bramble and as easy of increase. And as to 

 abundance of flowers, I know of one vicarage garden in 

 which this flower is a favourite, and is dotted about in 

 many parts, and many hundreds of bright flowers are 

 picked from the beginning of the year. It is one of 

 the oldest inhabitants of English gardens. Whether it 

 is the dvefjLwvt] of Bion that sprang from Aphrodite's 

 tears, or the anemone of Pliny, is doubtful, but I like 

 to think it is, and Theophrastus's description of it as 

 flowering in the winter, and very shortly after its 

 appearance aboveground, and that it is one of the 

 £7rtyeto(^vAAa, favours this idea ; and so does Pliny, 

 who says, 'Some have a deeper and scarlet flower, 

 others bear a purple flower, and there be again which 

 are white. The leaves of these three be like unto 

 parsley ' (Philemon Holland's trans., 1601). 



