76 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



black, shiny seeds, proclaiming its distant affinity to 

 the onion, is excellently equipped for a struggle 

 wherein strength counts for more than cunning. 

 The wind of autumn probably scatters the seed a few 

 feet from stiff seed-cases of the parent plant, so that 

 the migrating power of the species amounts to less 

 than a yard a year. Nevertheless, it has managed to 

 overrun a very large portion of the earth, being 

 known throughout temperate Europe and Asia. 

 Much of its travelling was obviously done in pre- 

 historic times, when there were no British Isles, very 

 little Atlantic, and when woodlands were far more 

 general than they are now. 



Not even the whole woodland does the bluebell 

 overrun. In some of the drier portions another lily, 

 the sweet-smelling lily of the valley, is sending up 

 myriads of leaves rolled into points, within which the 

 little peals of ivory bells are in process of being made. 

 Solomon's-seal, also claiming near relationship, towers 

 its larger growth in these drier tracts. The damper 

 flats down by the stream, too, are unoccupied by the 

 hyacinth. They are reserved for a third member of 

 the order, which has a peculiar triumph of its own. 

 It is to send up an umbel of such pretty stars of 

 white blossoms that one or two of them must always 

 be picked, in spite of the fact that they and the whole 

 plant smell strongly of garlic. 



A lily with the smell of an onion ! There are other 

 lily wonders to be found in the wood. Here is one 

 that has grown to timber, whose apparent leaves are 

 fiercely spiked at the tip, and bear blossoms and 

 afterwards berries in the middle of the blade. But 

 the botanist says that the butcher's-broom has no 



