THE WINTER GARDEN 403 



with the rich gold. The uncalyxed petals do not 

 stand so thick as the later, though only slightly later, 

 daphnes, but thicker on the stiff branches than the 

 trails of Forsythia. 



The sacred Glastonbury thorn is usually accounted 

 a thing unattainable by ordinary garden lovers. Yet 

 science knows it under the prosaic name of " var. 

 precox" and it is not unlikely that a nurseryman would 

 undertake to supply it. If the right variety is obtained 

 it can be relied upon to blossom about the first week 

 in January in fair profusion. This season it was 

 forced out in November, and those shrivelled blossoms 

 now accompany the haws of last summer on the tree. 

 But now it is on the verge of opening fire again. 

 The buds can be counted as easily as on the more 

 usual variety in the middle of April, but, unlike that, 

 precox blooms now without the preliminary of putting 

 forth leaves. But with the mere mention of the 

 calmias and of Lonicera standishii let us finish with 

 the winter flowers in the more generally accepted 

 sense of the term. Call them flowers or not, we 

 cannot enjoy our garden without the rain of long, 

 green catkins with which Garrya elliptica covers its 

 brilliant evergreen at Christmas. And we are glad 

 to see from the window, though not strictly in the 

 garden, the soft silver buds that the willows and 

 sallows are turning into gold for the ecstasy of the 

 bees. Those who are for the spring stimulation of 

 brood cannot have sallow catkins too near the hive, 

 and, for other reasons, if they were not so common 

 in the woods, most gardens would be proud to have 

 a bush of them for spring flowering. The same or 

 even more is to be said for fragrant colt's-foot or 



