456 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



to get early and authentic news of her advent. It 

 has a warm and a well-drained soil ; even the wild 

 things live there under something like garden con- 

 ditions, and among a great collection of varieties 

 those labelled pr&cox are naturally well represented. 

 In moments of untrammeled speculation, the writer 

 is tempted to wonder whether there is not something 

 infectious in the atmosphere of Kew that makes out- 

 door things blossom early because of the February 

 wistaria in the greenhouses, and makes normal 

 blossoms open early because of the early varieties 

 planted near them. It seems as though the buzzing 

 of the bees round the unusual masses of Christmas- 

 rose stirred up the daffodils before their time. How- 

 ever, in view of sufficient material reasons for the 

 earliness of Kew, the fancy is easily dismissed. 

 Certainly when crocuses were but peeping elsewhere 

 in pioneer twos and threes, we found the well-rounded 

 banks under the oaks and elms at Kew one mass of 

 gold. The big patch of Mediterranean heather at the 

 entrance to the Alpine garden has been for some 

 weeks purple with blossom, waiting till a day of hot 

 sunshine shall bring it a congregation of winged life 

 worthy of the feast. The Alpine garden itself is a 

 sunken dell, which makes very much for earliness. 

 Out from the bare mould the early things that put 

 blossom before leaves are sending up all kinds of 

 brilliant gems. None are more beautiful than the 

 hepaticas, whose blue and pink eyes are starred with 

 stamens like eyelashes. The vivid chionodoxa opens 

 with plaited purple down between leaves unwilling to 

 loose it on the cold world ; and it spends its life in 

 daily spreading wider its blossoms, and daily turning 



