THE 

 WINTER ACONITE. 



Eranthis hyemalis. 



'N common with many of the 

 humbler kinds of garden flowers, 

 the winter aconite is but little 

 known to humble,, gardeners, but 

 the managers of " great places" 

 know it, and prize it, and turn 

 it to good account in the com- 

 paratively new order of decoration 

 known as " spring gardening." 

 It is but a little herb, with a 

 dark tuberous root, producing in 

 February or March yellow flowers, 

 surrounded by a whorl of glossy- 

 green deeply-cut leaves. It lasts 

 but a short time, and is not very 

 showy even at the best. 

 But as one star compels attention when the sky is 

 black and no other star is to be seen, so this little flower, 

 which is many degrees inferior in brightness of colouring 

 to a common buttercup, has a most delightful appearance 

 if we have the good fortune to see it on a soft sunny day 

 in February. Then, indeed, it seems to say the spring is 

 surely coming, and even the frost-defying daffodils, that 



