THE WINTER GARDEN 401 



within. Eyes, descending to earth once more, are 

 greeted with the full fire-blue gaze of an anemone 

 that, under the shelter of a warm oolitic rock, has 

 opened its astonishing petals. Blue as Iiepatica, which 

 will soon join it, this rejoices in the name of angulosa, 

 earned, no doubt, by some quality not apparent in 

 the flower. There are no leaves yet, as is the case 

 with most of the very early spring flowers. It enables 

 them to make a splash on the bare soil that is far 

 more effective than that of even the most solitary of 

 summer blossoms. 



The flower that we would like most to welcome in 

 our Alpine garden as early in the year as this is the 

 papery Soldanella, which at home is the earliest of 

 the Alpines, yet sleeps in its English rockery even to 

 the time of bluebells. If some year we may have 

 six inches of snow on the ground for three or four 

 weeks, we shall expect to see Soldanella come up as 

 in Switzerland, as soon as ever the snow vanishes, 

 or even making a little cave for itself under the 

 frozen crust. But, paradoxically, our mild English 

 winters seem too severe for many of the Alpines, and 

 they keep time not by temperature but by length 

 of day. We must go south for our precocious 

 blossoms. It is thence that we have got our early 

 brooms, that are now showing their cream-coloured 

 folded butterflies among the small but wonderfully 

 sheltering leaves. Thence, too, the winter-blossoming 

 heathers, of which the best known are mediterranea 

 and carnea. Every winter gardener must have these. 

 They are a floral joy at the bleakest time of the year, 

 and tender nurses just now to the bulbs that in 

 March will shoot through their branches and use 

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